No place like home
by JCB
Summary: Final chapter up at last! The remainder of the human race hopes they've found a new planet to call home
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters; I'm only borrowing them for a while**

**This story starts about 4 months after the end of my last one (Returning to work). It will be Kara/Lee but I'm going to expand out into some of the other characters as well and there will of course be a good dollop of action. Likely to be darker than the previous stories with possibly one or two character deaths (you have been warned!).**

**As season 2 has now started this could now be considered AU. I will try to avoid obvious spoilers (in consideration of my brethren back across the pond in good old Blighty!) but may include little facts and references that are not too spoilerish.**

**For those of you who haven't read the previous stories (please do) or who need a refresher, we're now almost 2 years on from the end of season one. Kara and Lee are married, their baby Alex is cute, Adama is thoughtful, the president is still alive and Baltar is as mad as ever! I think that about covers it.**

**Please let me know what you think of this one – I love all the reviews.**

**No place like home**

**Chapter 1**

Doctor Cottle turned away from the scans he had been examining closely and regarded his patient with an exasperated expression.

"Would you mind telling me why the frak you didn't come to me the moment that you found the lump?"

She stared at him, her eyebrows raised in surprise at this form of address.

"If you'll pardon my bluntness, Madame President," he added, somewhat sardonically.

Relenting, she said, "This appointment was only two weeks away and in case you haven't noticed, we've been rather busy."

"I'm well aware of how busy everyone is, but two weeks could make all the difference at this stage. I have no idea whether the drug from Kobol will work a second time around. It may have put you in remission for eighteen months, but it obviously isn't the complete cure we had hoped for. I'm going to start you on it again right away."

He looked at her with that dour expression of his. She smiled, despite the overwhelming tension gripping her gut.

"What, no cigarette smoke in my face this time?"

"No. I've finally run out," he grumbled. Then, still looking at her, he rather sheepishly raised the sleeve of his coat to reveal a small patch stuck to his skin.

"I always keep a supply for emergencies, although I'm even getting low on these now. Can't replace the feeling of a drag on a cigarette though," he admitted grudgingly.

"Well at least I won't die of secondary lung cancer now."

"You won't die of breast cancer either if I can help it."

She laid a hand on his arm. "We both know that's going to happen sometime. It's just a question of when."

"We'll know more in a couple of weeks after the first cycles of treatment."

−

Admiral William Adama looked out at the blue-green planet around which Galactica and the rest of the fleet were orbiting. He didn't come to Galactica's view deck very often, but occasionally, late at night, when he wanted to think through a problem and knew he wouldn't sleep until he had the answer, he came here. He found it a good place to achieve a clarity of thought that sometimes eluded him in the ever-busy CIC. It was generally pretty quiet down here nowadays. It had always been a haven for couples trying to find a private spot, with the added benefit of a spectacular view, but that had gotten a bit out of hand and now it was prohibited to come here without express approval of a crew member's CO. The only time that he was aware of it being used recently for that purpose was when Kara had persuaded Lee that he could approve her using it as her CO; just because he would be using it with her without approval hadn't seemed to bother her. Unfortunately for them, he had chosen that evening to come down and he had spotted them, giggling like children, sneaking away. It still made him chuckle to think of the mortified expression on Lee's face when he had hinted to him that he knew about it.

Gazing out at space had always calmed his mind and reminded him of his very insignificance in comparison with the vastness of the universe. Right now, however, as his gaze contemplated the planet below, his mind was anything but calm. Something just didn't feel right about this planet that the remainder of the people of the twelve colonies had decided to turn into their new home. He had no idea why he felt this way. Part of the reason why he was sitting here gazing at the planet, when he should have been grabbing a few precious hours of sleep, was to try and think through rationally why he wasn't comfortable about their choice. Part of him whispered that it was because if they settled safely here he would no longer be needed in command of Galactica. He would finally have to retire like he was supposed to have done two years ago. What was he supposed to do then? Wait for people to visit him with news of his ship and long for the days when he got to baby-sit his grandson? He'd rather kiss a Cylon! He admitted to himself that there may be an element of this in his concern, but that wasn't entirely it.

A more fundamental reason was that vice president Baltar had been so keen that they choose this planet to settle on. Adama just didn't trust the man at all. Anything that he suggested need to be viewed with a great deal of sceptical caution. Adama had never quite trusted him since his much vaunted cylon detector had failed to identify lieutenant Valerii as a cylon. He scratched at the long scar on his chest absentmindedly as he thought of all the elaborate excuses the not so good doctor had tried to give at the time. However, in the recommendation of this planet Baltar's reasons had been pretty sound. He had certainly supported Adama when the admiral had vetoed the other two planets with oxygen-based atmospheres which they had seriously considered settling on since they had jumped across the storm field to the co-ordinates provided by Kara's gallant efforts. This planet had the advantage over the others of being half surrounded by a protective asteroid belt and the ace in the hole, a rich source of tyllium ore on one of its moons. There was also no resident sentient species which also made colonisation easier. It seemed this planet was fairly young and still at an early stage of development in its evolutionary cycle; they had found insects, birds and water creatures, but no higher species. And yet he had a sense that there was something else behind Baltar's recommendation and that's what he bothered him.

When it came to the final decision on colonisation, he had been voted down by the council of representatives. The only person who had voted against settling on this planet, tentatively named New Kobol, had been Tom Zarek and the Lords only knew what deep game that man was playing. So without a military coup, not an option he would consider again, he had no way of stopping the move.

They were now in the process of beginning the colonisation. The people were desperate to get out of their ships and onto the planet, but they needed to keep it organised and at least the president had allowed a joint civilian-military task force for that operation. Up until recently only the most essential personnel needed to set up initial camp sites and research the planet and its resources had been allowed on to the surface. Two weeks ago they had finally started up a rotation of civilian visits. Each person got to go for a day, bathe in a fresh water lake, have their clothes cleaned, walk or just lie in the sun and get a fresh cooked, hot meal. The Galactica's medical staff had set up a medical tent where they could get a physical and address their various ailments. It wasn't much, but it was more than some of these people had had in almost two years. Some of them were belligerent when it came time to return to space at the end of the day, but most were pathetically grateful. The only problem was that it was putting a stretch on his already thinly spread resources. In his capacity as military advisor to the government, Tigh was working with the president's office to organise the rota for visits and the transport of the people to and from the planet, and so was spending much of his time on Colonial One. He had put Lee in charge of things on the planet itself. It would have been much better if they could have swapped jobs as Lee's natural diplomacy was much needed when trying to work with the civvies, but Adama wasn't going to let him return to working so closely with the president. Despite some of the issues caused by Saul's somewhat abrasive personality, this arrangement was at least giving Adama a great deal of amusement from seeing Ellen trying to act like the regal party hostess for each group leaving for the planet! With Lee down on the planet, Kara was covering his CAG duties on Galactica, which she didn't seem particularly happy about. His biggest concern was that if any of his fears came to pass, and they were attacked, then his team was scattered.

Whilst he was contemplating these many problems there was a scrapping of the hatch behind him and Laura Roslin appeared through the door.

"I thought I was pretty safe from interruption here. How did you find me?" He asked, a slight smile telling her he wasn't really annoyed by her interruption.

"I have my sources!" She smiled slightly.

He knew exactly who her source had been, but he couldn't be annoyed. Dee had been keeping a close eye on him ever since he had been shot. It had been Lee who had told him how she had held his hand and stayed with him until the medics arrived. Now that she was married to Billy and spending more time on Colonial One, no doubt little nuggets of information like where to find him late at night would get dropped to the president.

"Anyway, what are you doing on Galactica so late at night?"

"I had an appointment with Major Cottle which had to wait until he had returned from New Kobol."

He just stared at her for a moment, noticing the strain around her eyes which was nothing to do with the stress of being president.

"The cancer's back isn't it?" He asked quietly.

"Yes it is and Cottle is unsure whether the Kobol drug will work a second time around. I can't wait to find out. I have to make plans in case it doesn't. I know how you hate politics, but I do need to discuss the political situation that this causes with you. It has become obvious to me over the last few months that Dr Baltar's mental stability has deteriorated further to the point where we cannot allow him to become president in the event of my death."

"Why don't you just say that he's a certifiable nut job like the rest of us?"

"We're talking about the vice president of the colonies. This has to be managed very carefully."

"I'll leave managing Dr Baltar's resignation on health grounds up to you: I'd just lock the nutcase in the brig. Who are the alternatives?"

"Zarek, obviously. He's been pretty quiet since he lost the election, but I still don't trust him enough to offer him a sure fire route to the presidency."

"If he finds out you're sick again….."

"We have to make sure that he doesn't find out. Can you step up the surveillance on him?"

"Really Madame President, I don't know what you're talking about. It would be highly inappropriate for the military to engage in covert surveillance of a member of the council! We've never done any sort of monitoring of Tom Zarek's activities," he said with a wink.

"Of course, Admiral!" She replied in kind. "I have some other ideas but no immediate candidate stands out. I just need to know what that man is doing so that I can be prepared to act if necessary." One of her ideas included a political career for his son, but she wasn't about to float that with him before she'd even spoken with Lee; she suspected that he'd always been jealous of her easy relationship with his son. "If I can just hang on until we can get the people off the ships and settled on to the planet it will make things much easier."

"That could be months away, but hopefully that won't be a problem. You know that I don't want there to be significant colonisation until we can assess the security of the whole planet thoroughly, and set up some sort of early warning surveillance operation around this star system. I'm not going to change that position because there is a political need."

"Noted, admiral. You're still concerned that we're not far enough out of the Cylons' reach?"

"Yes. We have to remember that they disappeared for forty years. Who knows how much deep space exploration they could have done in that time. No one knows where they went. Their home planet could be in the next system for all we know."

"Is this what you're sitting here in the dark thinking about?"

"Somebody has to and as admiral of the fleet I thought it was probably my job." He smiled that slightly lop-sided smile of his that told her he was just gently teasing.

"Yes it is. While it's my job to look after the civilians and right now, unless there is overwhelming evidence of an immediate Cylon threat, what they need is to get back on solid ground."

"I'll abide by the rule of the council Madame President. I just won't be letting down my guard, nor will I be letting my crew let theirs down either."

"We're all incredibly grateful that you're not. I for one will sleep better at night knowing that you're still up here!"

"Why thank you Madame President." He regarded her for a moment then said, "Aren't you disappointed?"

"About what?"

"Well the scriptures didn't come true. May be you're not a prophet after all. You didn't die before the people made it to their promised land."

"I've not been angling for canonisation, Bill. I'll take the promised land any way and any time it comes."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Eventually he reached over and took her hand.

"For what it's worth, Laura, I hope the drugs work again. We may not always have seen eye to eye, but you've done one hell of a job in difficult times."

Laura didn't know what affected her more; the feeling of his thumb rubbing comfortingly up and down her palm or the fact that he'd used her name for what must be the first time. Both got under the tight wall she had put up around her emotions. For the first time since Cottle's confirmation that her cancer had returned she felt the tears well up in her eyes. He didn't do anything, just kept hold of her hand and continued the gentle movements of his thumb while she cried quietly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Kara let the cool water from the shower dribble over her face, hoping that it would relieve some of the tiredness and tension she felt through what seemed like her whole body. This was the end of the eighth night since Lee had gone to New Kobol and she felt like she hadn't slept during any of them. It was the longest that they had been apart since they got married and the whole rhythm of her life just seemed out of synch without him there. It was also the first time that she had had to cope as essentially a single parent and it couldn't have come at a worse time: all her fears about her ability to be a good mother had come back to the fore without Lee's steadying and encouraging influence. She knew that what Lee was doing was important for the fleet, and that he was the best man for the job, but she couldn't help a feeling of resentment that she was stuck up here on Galactica having to cover for him as CAG and as a parent.

She could hear Alex crying over the sound of the running water of the shower. He had started teething a few weeks ago and he was as cranky as hell. She had been dealing with him all week, when she wasn't flying and filling in for the CAG, and she had just about had enough. Much as she loved him, and would do anything she could to relieve the pain he was in, she just needed a break right now. Fortunately Lee was due back on Galactica in an hour or so and it was definitely time for him to take a turn in caring for their son. She turned off the shower and quickly wrapped a towel around herself. She picked Alex up from his cot and retrieved the makeshift teething ring that he had managed to throw out during his fit of temper. She knew it wasn't his fault; she could still remember how grumpy she had been when her wisdom teeth had been coming through, and she had known what was happening, not to mention been able numb her mouth with alcohol, so she applied herself to calming him down with uncharacteristic patience. Her fussing and cuddling seemed to sooth him. She juggled him on to her hip as the phone went.

"Er, Captain Thrace?" The voice on the other end sounded tentative.

"Yes," barked out Kara. If she had any more interruptions this morning she would never make the morning pilot's briefing on time.

"Message from Major Adama, sir. He won't be able to make it back today and he'll call tomorrow with an update."

"What! No, he's not getting away with this. Specialist, get him on the line for me now!"

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir." The specialist in question might have been quite new in her job, but even she knew that when Starbuck used that tone she meant it.

This was the last straw. Kara was so angry that she could hardly see straight. She put the baby down in his cot, even though he had the expression on his face that Lee called his "Kara face" because it made him look suspiciously like his mother and it usually signalled impending trouble. She was too damn angry to worry about him becoming fractious again and quickly dressed in the first clean clothes she could find. The phone went again and the specialist put her through to Lee.

"What the frak do you think you're playing at Lee? You haven't been home in over a week and I get a message about another delay passed to me by some ass-wipe in CIC!"

"Good morning to you too, darling," he said, his tone amused, which only served to fuel Kara's anger further.

"You think it's funny do you? Well I don't. I've just about had enough. We've hardly seen you since this assignment started. I'm trying to do your job and mine, as well as look after your child. Your son is being pushed from person to person just so I can keep up with my shifts." Alex had started to wail again in the back ground "Can you hear him? He's been like that all week and I've just about had all I can take. He's supposed to have two parents; we're supposed to work together at this. You told me that you were going to be there 100 per cent of the way when we had him. That doesn't mean that you can forget about us every time your job gets in the way. What about the lectures you've given me about family responsibilities changing things in your career?" She finally stopped for a breath.

"Look Kara, I know it's hard on you, but things are really busy down here right now. You know the situation we're in. I just can't get away." Lee had obviously picked up on her anger and tried for a soothing tone, but with the distance between them he misjudged just how worked up she was.

"No Lee, I'm sick of that excuse. Haven't you heard of the concept of delegation? There are plenty of other people who can take over for a day or two. I mean, what the frak is Kelly doing? He needs to step up to the plate and take some responsibility for once."

"Kara, please, you're not thinking about this rationally."

"Frak rational! I'm so frakking pissed with you at the moment that I couldn't even spell rational! It's quite simple Lee; there are no more excuses. Either you're in these quarters this evening when I get off shift or you can forget coming back here ever again." She didn't wait for any reply and slammed down the phone.

She took a deep, steadying breath. Had she just threatened him like that? Yes she had. Well the stupid frakker deserved it! She wasn't about to be frakked about by Lee Adama's dedication to duty the way his mother had been: she needed to nip this in the bud now or he would only get worse (see exhibit A, one Admiral Adama!). She counted to ten to try and calm herself and picked up her son again to try and repair the damage to his mood. She had to retrieve his teething ring from the floor yet again.

"Look buster, if you would just stop chucking this thing away you wouldn't need to get worked up about it," she admonished, making a silly face at him. "But I guess you're past being rational as well." She kissed his silky hair, feeling some of the anger in her system drain away.

"Lords, help you if you've got your father's Adama dedication to duty genes. Come to think of it, if you've got those combined with my Thrace screw up genes you're completely frakked. Really, we should never have been allowed to reproduce at all, should have been kept well out of the gene pool." Her son just regarded her with that slight smile that reminded her so much of Lee. "And don't tell your dad that I said those naughty words in front of you either." He continued making relatively happy baby noises for once, chewing on his ring as yet more drool dribbled down his chin. She cleaned him up before he could wipe the dribble all over her flight suit and then made her way to the ready room for the morning briefing. Thinking that Lee was going to be back she hadn't arranged a baby sitter for this morning. Plonking Alex on the unsuspecting Hotdog's lap she moved to the podium.

"Morning boys and girls. Sorry about the new recruit. He won't actually be flying with us this morning. Although, that might not be such a bad idea. I'm pretty sure that my ten month old son could probably put on a better display than some of the stuff I saw from you lot yesterday." She gave Crashdown a pointed look and he had the grace to blush, knowing his last landing had left a large divot in the deck. "This is your last warning people. The next person who is stupid enough to leave so much as a scratch on either their bird or the landing deck will find themselves on head-cleaning duty for a week. Do I make myself clear?"

There were a few laughs and a mumbled "yes sir". Kara hardened her expression.

"I said; do I make myself clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" came the chorused reply.

"Better. I've been much too easy on you guys. Well no more Mrs nice Starbuck. I'm just here doing the CAG's job and you know that he would bust your asses for such sloppiness, and believe me, I can do a pretty effective impression of him when I want to. You know your assignments. There are no updates so get to it. Dismissed!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Kara hoped for a quiet CAP to allow her a chance to work out what she was going to say to Lee when he finally got back to Galactica or what she was going to do to him if he didn't. However, this was not meant to be because Dee's voice came over the radio before she had barely had a chance to set the positions of her wingmen.

"Starbuck, Galactica. Please proceed to co-ordinates epsilon gamma. We have a ship leaving the fleet without authorisation."

"Roger that Galactica, we're on our way."

Starbuck instructed her team and swung her viper around, sprinting across the fleet to where one of the ships was indeed moving away from the others and heading towards the planet. The Virgon Express was one of the smallest ships in the fleet, with less than fifty people on board, and was easily surrounded by the three vipers. Its sudden escort didn't seem to have any impact on its flight; instead the ship fired its thrusters and speeded up, to dive towards the planet at breakneck speed.

"Galactica, Starbuck. We are in position. What are your orders?"

"Starbuck, stand-by for Galactica Actual." There was a moment of silence, followed by the deep, familiar voice.

"Get as close as you can Starbuck and get them to stop. If they won't stop then fire a couple of warning shots."

Starbuck brought her viper in as close to the ship as possible; she could practically see right into the cockpit.

"Virgon Express, this is Galactica combat air patrol. You are ordered to disengage from your current course and return to the fleet." There was no reply and no change in the ship's course.

"Virgon Express. I repeat. You are ordered to return to the fleet." When there was still no reply she signalled to Slider and Kat to move back and took careful aim with her guns. The shots whistled past the cockpit of the ship, close enough to make it rock but not close enough to cause any damage. Still they maintained radio silence and continued on their desperate flight towards the planet.

"Galactica, Starbuck. They're not responding. Warning shots were ineffective."

"Then put them under full missile lock. If that doesn't stop them then you are to take a shot that will damage and halt the ship but not destroy it."

"Sorry? Can you repeat that sir?"

"You heard me Starbuck. Take the shot: they're committing mutiny."

Kara swore profusely under her breath, but pulled her viper around and targeted the ship's thrusters.

"What the frak are you doing, Starbuck?" Came Kat's incredulous voice across the radio.

"My job, apparently. I need you guys to get missile lock on these idiots too…. Virgon Express this is your final warning. I have you in my sights and I am ordered to fire if you don't stop." This at last got a response. She could imagine the panic in the ship as the missile lock sirens started beeping in the cockpit.

"Galactica combat air patrol, what the frak do you think you're doing? We're civilians!"

"Just following orders. Now get your butt back to the fleet, asshole, before my finger accidentally slips on this firing button!"

−

Back in CIC the admiral let out a sigh of relief as the blip on dradis signalling the Virgon Express started to move back towards the fleet. Gaeta approached him, inevitable report in hand. He handed it to him but hung around looking as if he wanted to say something.

"What is it lieutenant?"

"Pardon the question sir, but was that really necessary?"

"Yes it was lieutenant. Can you imagine what would happen next if we had let that ship go to the planet? Which one do you think would be the next to leave?"

"Would that be so bad, sir? They've been in space for so long. The passengers on that ship are amongst those who haven't had the trip yet. Why can't we just let them go to the planet?"

"And have almost 50,000 people wandering around a planet with no shelter or provisions? No lieutenant, when this colonisation takes place it needs to be done in an orderly fashion. Until then we take similar action with any ship that attempts to leave without authorisation. Hopefully the little display today will have sent fair warning to all the ship's captains that we're serious about this." He knew that he would probably get an irate call from Billy or worse, the president, about this incident but he felt fully justified that it was the right thing to do.

−

By the time she got back from CAP at the end of a long day Kara's mood had hit an all time low. Having had a chance to think about what she had almost done on that patrol, the incident with the Virgon Express had really shaken her up. She couldn't believe that the old man had actually ordered her to fire on a ship of the fleet when no Cylon infiltration was involved. She just couldn't understand how they had come to a point of turning their guns on their own. As she climbed wearily down from her viper she noticed Lee's mark VII parked on the hanger deck. That meant that he had finally got the message and returned to Galactica. It didn't mean that she was any less pissed off with him, probably the opposite; it shouldn't take her shouting and threatening him to make him come home. Right now she didn't think it was even safe for her to see him. She just needed some space and down time alone.

When she entered their quarters Lee was rolling around on the floor with a delighted Alex. I bet the little bugger behaves like a perfect angel with him, she thought savagely. She couldn't help herself having a quick gibe at her husband.

"So glad that you could finally join us, major. Now I get a chance to go running for the first time in a week." She started to get her gear out of the locker.

"Kara, I had to pull a whole ball full of strings to be here. I thought you wanted us to spend this evening together?" He asked, confused by her attitude.

"No, what I wanted Lee was a break and that's what I intend to take." She left the room, slamming the hatch viciously behind her.

As she ran round the corridors of Galactica, trying to calm her frayed nerves, she came across possibly the last person she wanted to see right now: her father-in-law.

"Evening Starbuck. What do you hear?"

"Sorry sir, not really in the mood for that right now. And the only thing I'm going to do if I grab a gun is shoot the frakking cat, so it's probably wise to keep me away from firearms at the moment. Oh and sir, don't ever ask me to fire my guns at another human being again." So saying, she sprinted off down the corridor, leaving Adama looking after her, a concerned expression on his face. He knew he should chastise her for such insubordination, but he was just plain worried about her.

−

Lee looked up from his thankless task of trying to get Alex to eat some food without spitting or throwing it, to see his father standing in the door way.

"Hey, dad. You want to try with him? I'm fed up of getting covered in this pap."

"Nope; Grandpas only have to do the nice jobs!" He sat down on the couch. "I've just seen Kara. Thought I ought to check that you were still breathing."

"Yeah, she's not in the best of moods."

"That's an understatement. I think she's in the gym now as I've had reports of strong men fleeing from the sight of her pummelling the punch bag."

"Better that than me! I think she's just tired. This hasn't been easy on her with me not here and Alex teething. I've been wondering dad, could you cope without her up here for a day or so? I've checked the schedules and she hasn't had a full day off in a month. I'd like to take her back to New Kobol with me."

"A day of R&R in the sun would probably do her good. You should take some time to be with her. I'm pretty sure that if I checked your shift pattern there wouldn't be many blanks there either. How's it going down there?"

"I think we're making good progress. The scientists have identified a number of potential non-poisonous food sources and we've finished the first of the communal shelters."

"What about Dr Baltar?" The vice-president was nominally supposed to be in charge of the civilian efforts on the planet.

"Well our esteemed vice-president does seem to be running around a lot, making a great deal of noise, but in my opinion achieving very little. I have no idea how we've let that man get into such a powerful position. The team just humours him. He's now decided that he needs to lead an expedition further to the west of our main site, with a team of scientists. Something about researching potential power sources. He's taking two of the engineers and I'm giving him a couple of marines to make sure that he doesn't get himself into more trouble that he needs rescuing from. They're supposed to be starting out tomorrow; at least it gets him out of my hair."

"Fine, but make sure that the marines are people you really trust. We need to keep up the pretence of treating him like the vice-president, but I want you to make sure that he's kept an eye on at all times." Lee looked at him oddly when he didn't go on any further, but let the comment go.

"Sure thing, dad."

"Well, I'm going to get out of here before Kara comes back. She's almost as frakked off with me as she is with you. We had our first runner today while she was on CAP and I had to be pretty tough on them to prevent any repeats."

−

When Kara came back she went and showered and then got into the bed without a word. Lee decided that talking obviously wasn't an option and slid into the bed beside her. He put his arms around her and leaned in to place a soft kiss on her neck. She was so tense she almost twanged. With a flick of her shoulders she shrugged him off.

"No Lee if you think that you can just have sex with me and this will all go away then you can think again."

She turned away from him. Lee lay back, being careful not to touch her, and wondered what the hell had happened in the days since he had last been on Galactica. Sure, things had been frantic recently, with the seemingly endless search and assessment of potential planets, but they'd been OK, hadn't they? He struggled to remember the last time the pair of them had just been able to sit down and have a quiet meal together. May be that was it. Kara wasn't one to crave his attention, often the opposite in fact, but even she needed a little TLC every now and then. He vowed that he would take her down to New Kobol and they would get a day together as a family with no interruptions from either of their jobs.

Kara stared at the wall and willed herself not to cry. She had no idea why she was being like this with him. If she was honest with herself, all she wanted right now was to feel his arms around her and his gentle voice telling her that everything would be alright, but something in her just couldn't accept that comfort. The endless sleepless nights of the last week had afforded her plenty of time to think. She couldn't tell him that alone in the quiet of the night all her inner demons that Lee had managed to chase away had started to creep back. They whispered that the reason he stayed away and seemed almost oblivious to her recently was that he didn't really love her: she wasn't worthy of being loved by him. They told her that she had somehow frakked up their relationship; whatever happened was bound to be all her fault; that she couldn't expect to hold the love of a decent man: He only stayed with her because of his son. What would happen when they finally moved to the planet? Would he want to stay on as CAG of Galactica? Would she want to stay? What would happen if one of them decided to stay and the other decided to go to the planet? How could she remain in the world she was comfortable with up here when she really knew that her son deserved to be raised on New Kobol? All these questions and the ever conflicting answers seemed to be constantly swirling around in her head these days, so she reacted in the classic Starbuck fashion to try and forget them: put up your fists and fight.

Lee's deep breathing beside her told her that he was asleep, so she allowed herself to let go a few tears. Eventually, exhaustion took over and she finally fell asleep.

−

Despite the fact that they had gone to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, when Kara awoke in the morning they were in their usual tight ball of intertwined legs and arms. She sneaked a look up at Lee's face to find him awake and watching her.

"Hey," she ventured.

"Hey yourself."

"What, have I grown horns or something?" she said when he just carried on staring at her.

"No, I was just enjoying seeing you so peaceful."

"Yeah, must have been a nice change." It was the closest she was going to get to an apology for her behaviour the night before.

"Kara, sweetheart, listen to me." The term of endearment let her know that he was about to say something serious. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hear it. "I know you're tired and Alex has been difficult and I know that I haven't been any help at all. I also know the kind of thoughts that start to run through your head when things get to you like that. I want you to know that I love you more than you could ever realise. I will never leave you while I still have breath in my body. Even when duty drags me away, I'm thinking about you almost all of the time, even when I shouldn't be."

She could only look at him, her eyes huge pools in her face. What he was saying was so close to what she had been thinking about the night before that it made her realise just how well he knew her. All of a sudden she seemed to have no control over her emotions and the tears started to run down her cheeks.

"Oh, Lee" was all she could squeak out. He pulled her close.

"Shhh, shhh, it's OK. I think it's about time we had some down time together, don't you think? I've cleared it with the old man for you to come back with me to the planet for a day or so. We can just laze in the sun, explore; anything you want."

"Yeah, that sounds good. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm up and down like a frakking yo-yo at the moment."

"You couldn't be pregnant again could you Kara?" he tried to keep his tone level, to keep the note of hope out of it. He loved being a father. As far as he was concerned they couldn't have too many children, but he knew that he wasn't the key player in that particular decision. He also realised that broaching the subject with Kara before their first was even a year old was a sure fire way of getting castrated.

"No, definitely not pregnant. Which reminds me, I must make an appointment to get my next jab." Lee decided that it might be worth living dangerously.

"We've never really talked about whether we want to have more children." She looked at him incredulously

"You're priceless Lee. We've just had one of our biggest arguments ever; I even threatened to throw you out, and you want to talk about whether we want more kids. I can hardly cope with the one I've got at the moment!"

"OK so may be my timing's not great but we really should talk about it."

"We'll talk about it sometime Lee, just not now."

"You're right. Of course you're right. And I can think of much better things that we could be doing right now!" He bent his head to kiss her, his hands moving in a soft caress across her body. Her response was uncharacteristically tentative at first but a whispered "I love you" from him melted her restraint away. He quickly pulled the shirt she had slept in over her head and returned for a deeper kiss, his hands moving to her breasts to circle their already hardening tips. He was just about to move lower when a loud wailing started on the other side of the room. Lee groaned and dropped his head on to Kara's chest in defeat. She just laughed.

"He's your son!"

−


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Vice president Baltar lay back in his bunk in the temporary shelter on New Kobol, a smile of utter contentment on his face. Anybody looking at him would imagine that he was having a particularly good dream. What Six was doing to him at the moment was particularly good, but as far as he was concerned it wasn't a dream. The smile changed from one of just contentment to a look of deep pleasure and he couldn't help a small groan escaping.

"Ahhh, yes!"

"Sorry Dr Baltar? I didn't realise that you were awake. Is there something you need?" Baltar's eyes snapped open to find captain Kelly staring down at him.

"Umm, yes. I just remembered that we need to er, er take some sort of long wave communication device tomorrow."

"It's already in the pack, sir."

"That's umm, good, great. Er, well done captain," he said in what he hoped was a dismissive type of voice. Six had now shimmied back up his body and had started nibbling his ear and he really wanted her to go back to what she had been doing.

"Really Gaius, you're becoming so talented at covering these little moments. I'm almost tempted to see just how far we could go without the good Captain here noticing." Baltar just coughed and gave her a pointed look. The captain moved away at last and Six started to kiss the exposed parts of his chest above his tanks. He looked down at her.

"You know he still hasn't spoken to me; God hasn't spoken to me. You told me that he'd speak to me and let me know that I'd chosen the right planet. I need to know that she's here; I want to finally meet her."

"It's all part of the plan, Gaius; you just have to be patient. All will become clear to you soon. But I know that God is very pleased with you, Gaius. So pleased, in fact, that you deserve a reward." She smiled that particularly evil smile and her hands were once again moving to the fastening of his pants.

−

Adama looked out at the sleek lines of Colonial One as his shuttle pulled along side and into their landing bay. When politicians requested joint meetings with the government and the military, he usually sent along Saul, even occasionally Lee; anything so that he didn't have to sit through the interminable petty gripes of what he regarded as a group of pretty tin pot legislators. But when Tom Zarek requested such a meeting no one was going to do that one but him.

Zarek entered the conference room looking urbane and well groomed. He and Roslin greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek and a false display of camaraderie. He turned to the admiral, a wide smile on his face as he held out his hand.

"This is indeed an honour, admiral. I didn't think you deigned to attend such meetings." Adama looked pointedly at the hand and back at Zarek's face, without a single move to take the proffered hand shake.

"You said that you had something important to discuss. I'm here. So let's get on with it."

Zarek just ignored the snub and shrugged his shoulders, still looking at Adama with a malevolent little smile.

"You asked for this meeting, Tom. What can we do for you?" Laura asked.

"I want to know why nobody from the Astral Queen has yet been allowed down on to New Kobol."

"There are many ships in the fleet where people have yet to get a visit, Tom. This is going to take time." Roslin told him, placatingly.

"But they're all on the list. The inhabitants of the Astral Queen aren't even on the schedule."

"The last time I looked at the colonial penal code it didn't say anything about pleasure trips for convicted criminals." Adama knew that he was baiting Zarek, but he wanted to see what if anything got a rise out of him.

"As I've pointed out before, most of the inhabitants of the Astral Queen were on their way to parole hearings. Many would by now have completed their original sentences. Several have built up sufficient parole credits to achieve their freedom by working for the good of the fleet, or isn't your son's word good for them admiral?" He stared challengingly at Adama. Adama knew that he was being goaded in return, but couldn't resist a little dig of his own.

"My son's word is always good, Zarek and you know it. Everything he promised has been delivered, even the elections: it wasn't his fault that you lost."

"Touché, admiral." He made a saluting gesture to his opponent. Turning to Laura, he said, "here's the bottom line, Madame President. Either the inhabitants of the Astral Queen get their visit scheduled or they are withdrawing all support of maintenance and other activities that they perform throughout the fleet."

Laura pursed her lips. She knew how much the fleet was relying on those crews of prisoners just to keep flying. Most of the ships in the fleet hadn't been designed for this duration of space flight and needed constant fixes to keep them going.

"Alright Tom. We will schedule the visit for those prisoners who have either completed their sentence or achieved sufficient parole credits to be given their freedom. The others cannot be allowed to leave the Astral Queen." He inclined his head towards her.

"That's fair, Madame President. I look forward to hearing from your staff as to when the visit will take place, but I would advise that it be as soon as possible or they may not trust you to deliver. Even I only have so much sway with them to prevent them doing something we might all regret if they feel a promise has not been delivered."

With this thinly veiled threat he stood up. He took Laura's hand and said with feigned concern "You look like you could do with a rejuvenating visit to the planet yourself Laura." She chose to ignore this comment, but wondered whether his sources were so good that he knew of her renewed treatment. He raised her hand to his lips briefly then turned to Adama, not even bothering extending his hand this time.

"Admiral, a pleasure, as always."

"I must say that I'm surprised that you're so keen on visiting the planet when you were the only one of the council who voted against it."

"I trust your judgement on such matters, Admiral. If you didn't like the idea there must have been a good reason."

Adama didn't reply, just gave him a look that said "that's just so much bullshit". Zarek smiled in return and signalled to his minders to accompany him as he left the room.

As soon as the door was shut, Laura flopped down in her chair.

"Urggg! That man always makes me feel naked." Adama raised an eyebrow at her. "Not in that way, Bill."

"Yes, he certainly is one cunning son of a bitch and he's got us by the balls on this one. I wonder what he's really up to."

"We're going to have to do what he wants, though, and let's just get it over with as quickly as possible."

"Yes, the sooner the better. The day after tomorrow was supposed to be a rest day for the crew on the planet, but I think it would be best if we did it then. I don't want that unholy lot from the Astral Queen mixing with any other people. We'll take the whole ship down and just let those allowed the visit off. The security will be easier than transferring them to a transport. I'll send an extra squad of marines."

"You'll speak to the major about it?" She missed the fact that she couldn't call him 'Captain Apollo' any more: 'Major Apollo' just didn't have the same ring to it!

"No, I think it best if Lee is kept away: the history between him, Zarek and some of the prisoners could lead to trouble. We should let him have the day off still and get them in and out without him there. I'll put colonel Tigh in charge. He can oversee the whole trip from start to end."

−


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Colonel Tigh shrugged on a clean uniform jacket with a sigh of resignation. The last thing that he wanted to do today was escort a bunch of rowdy ex-cons on some sort of pleasure junket. He supposed that Bill was right; they didn't need Apollo frakking things up by trying to settle old scores or enticing any of the prisoners to do the same, but it didn't make him any happier with the duty. He was sick of having to cosy up to the civvies.

Ellen sidled up behind him and put her arms around him.

"Take me with you today Saul," she begged, nuzzling his neck.

"You know that I can't Ellen."

"Why not? Haven't I worked hard enough on this project with you to deserve a little trip? I haven't even been to the planet yet." She pouted up at him.

"I'm going to have enough on my hands without worrying about you being on the planet with a bunch of men who haven't seen a woman in the Lords only knows how long!"

"But if you're there with me I wouldn't be worried. You know you always keep me safe Saul. Besides, we deserve it. We haven't been able to spend a day off together in ages; you were just about to get one and Bill goes and does this. Anyway, you're in charge of this mission. Once we get to the planet you just have to give the orders and then you and I can spend some time together."

He couldn't resist her when she was like this. Actually, he couldn't resist her most of the time. What she was asking for didn't seem like much. The prisoners would be well looked after; he had plenty of marine grunts going along to watch them.

"Alright, Ellen, but not a word to anyone. This is not an official visit in any way."

"I'm struck dumb Saul." She gave him a wide-eyed innocent look as she closed in to kiss him.

-

The trip to the Astral Queen went smoothly. They were taken to Zarek's quarters which were large and spacious. The two men greeted each other coolly.

"Colonel."

"Zarek."

"Ahh, and the lovely Mrs Tigh. So nice to see you again, um….."

"Ellen." She smiled her social smile at him and held out her hand. He gave it a firm shake.

Saul was looking around and missed the look that passed between them.

"Well this is certainly an improvement over a cell." He smiled maliciously at Zarek. "If this is what being on a prison ship is like, I think I'll sign up!"

Zarek chose to ignore this comment.

"Shall we get moving? I'm sure everyone would like a full day on New Kobol."

-

Everything went without a hitch. The Astral Queen landed by the base camp, set up beside one of the many lakes in the part of the planet that had been chosen as the site of initial settlement. The inhabitants flowed out, blinking at the unaccustomed light. Most of the prisoners chose just to laze in the sun: it wasn't something many of them had seen in a long, long time. The marine guards posted around the area watched them half-heartedly, themselves not unhappy with a duty that got them off Galactica for a day.

A pair of marines had been assigned to watch a group known to be Zarek's particular cronies. They had wondered along the shore, some way from the rest of the group. It wasn't long before Evans, the defacto leader of this little clique, realised that they were being trailed. He sidled up to one of the marines, an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips.

"Gotta light?" The marine pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit Evans' cigarette.

"I can't believe that you've still got any. We ran out on Galactica months ago."

"Guy on the Diadulus was so grateful when I fixed their gears that he gave me his last few. Wonna drag?"

The soldier took a hand off his weapon and grabbed the cigarette like a dying man in the desert grabs water and took a deep, long pull, taking the smoke deep into his lungs with a smile of pleasure. He didn't see the lightening fast hand reach out and grab his gun; only felt it as it came crashing up into the side of his skull. He fell to the ground and Evans finished the job with his boot. He bent to pick up his half smoked cigarette. "At least he died happy. Come on," he said to the rest of his companions who had dealt with the other guard.

−

In the tent that served as the COs quarters Tigh was beginning to think that this duty might not be so bad after all. Ellen already had him stripped down to his tanks and pants. She hadn't been this hot for him in a long time. The sight of her in her silk underwear and the feel of her smooth skin as she wrapped herself around him was making him light headed with lust. The sounds of the world outside the tent faded away as he concentrated on making love to his wife. Eventually, however, a sound that didn't seem quite right penetrated his brain.

"What was that?"

"What was what, Saul? I didn't hear anything." She resumed kissing him passionately.

"Damn it Ellen, that's gun fire."

"Yes it is Colonel." The flaps of the tent were pulled back and Evans stood at the entrance, a gun pointed at Tigh. "Come with us. The boss wants to see you."

They grabbed Tigh and bound his hands behind his back, before marching him over to the main shelter. All the prisoners seemed to be there; many armed to the hilt and guarding the marines. Tigh looked around in shock, trying to take in the sight of Captain Kelly and the other staff tied up on the floor. How the hell had this happened? Where in the Lords name had they gotten all those weapons from? Evans dug him in the back with his gun and pushed him towards Zarek who was standing, very much at ease, by the communications console.

"How nice of you to join us, colonel. Sorry to interrupt your little, er, party," he said mockingly. Ellen appeared, now dressed, and went and stood next to Zarek. Tigh looked from Zarek to Ellen and back again, the penny dropping.

"How could you Ellen?"

"Quite easily Saul. Did you think that I would be content to stay on Galactica being the perfect little wife? You never had any ambition Saul. Just happy to be Bill Adama's stooge. I worked out pretty quickly where the power was going to lie in the fleet sooner or later."

"Better Bill Adama's stooge than Zarek's. You bitch. I should have listened to Bill when he told me that you were nothing but trouble, but I wanted to believe your starting over story. Gods what a fool I've been!"

"Yes, that just about describes it. You have no idea how easy it was to pry the codes for the arms lockers out of you. Did you know that you talk in your sleep Saul? You talk even more loosely after a few glasses of ambrosia."

An animal like snarl escaped Tigh and he hurled himself towards her. Evans and his men immediately grabbed him and held him back. Evans swiped him across the head with the butt of his gun and Tigh fell in a heap on the floor.

"Take him away and secure him in one of the storage tents." Zarek looked down at the broken man at his feet with disgust. As Tigh was dragged away Ellen came close to him and put a hand on his chest suggestively.

"I hope now that I have delivered all that you asked of me I'm going to get the reward we discussed," she purred.

"Oh you will get a reward alright Ellen." He grabbed her chin and forced her head up to look at him. "But I'm just not sure that I can trust you. If you're prepared to betray the man you've been married to for ten years for the mere promise of sex and power, I don't doubt you wouldn't think twice about betraying me in an instant." Without warning he viciously twisted her neck, snapping it like twig, then let go. She fell to the floor at his feet.

"Ahh boss, you could have let us have had a bit of fun with her first."

"She's served her purpose and I want what brains you've got in your heads not your pants. Now get me Galactica on the radio."

−

"Sir, I have a transmission from the planet."

Adama frowned but picked up his headset, wondering if something were wrong.

"Colonel?"

"No, not your dear XO."

"Zarek! What's going on? Where's colonel Tigh?" The admiral's sense of foreboding was immediately raised.

"He's quite safe, along with Captain Kelly, but the facilities here are now under my control, including the ground to air defence you so conveniently had installed last week. I am taking control of the fleet admiral; if you co-operate and do not launch any attack on this position or try and stop me in any way then I will return your men to Galactica unharmed."

"If I don't agree to your blackmail?"

"I will not hesitate to use the ground to air defence system against any military craft that approach this planet."

Adama didn't bother to reply, just pulled off the headset and signalled the specialist to cut the transmission. He bowed his head in frustrated thought for a few moments. This was all they needed! That damned terrorist getting delusions of power again!

"Sir, I think you should listen to this. It's being broadcast to the fleet."

Zarek's voice boomed around the CIC.

"People of the colonial fleet, this is Tom Zarek. You have been failed yet again by your government. A new home has been found but you have not been allowed to populate it on the word of a military dictator who has the president in his pocket. I believe that you should be freed from this petty tyranny. The planet has now been taken back into the right civilian hands. I'm declaring New Kobol free and open to any members of the fleet who wish to join us."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

If anyone from the fleet had been watching the scene on the beach they would have imagined themselves to be back on one of the beautiful beaches on Geminon that one was occasionally lucky enough to find with barely a sole on them. The people on the beach would have been clearly recognisable as a military family on vacation: the dog tags around their necks gave it away instantly. If that wasn't enough, her military issue underwear made a functional if not very stylish bikini and that outfit, along with his butt-hugging shorts, did nothing to hide the sheer athletic fitness of their bodies as they ran through the waves. But there was nothing of military discipline in the way she shrieked as he playfully splashed her and the infant in her arms, or in the way he kissed her when he eventually caught her in his embrace.

−

When they had arrived on the planet early that morning Lee had said that he wanted to show Kara something special. As the base military commander he had managed to acquire use of one of their few land vehicles for the day and had driven out from alpha base. After about thirty minutes or so they had reached the coast.

"I've wanted to show you this place since I first saw it. You remember that little fishing village we used to go to when we got R&R from the academy?"

"The one with the great pub?" Trust Kara to remember that!

"Yeah. Well I found this place when we were surveying and it kinda reminded me of that place; without the village or the pub of course."

They pulled up on the edge of the beach of a small cove, protected on one side by cliffs and on the other by rolling hills. There was a perfect expanse of beach lapped by gentle waves from the bright blue sea. Lee was right; it was just like that little haven on Picon that they had on occasion escaped to during their time at college. It was certainly a place that held happy memories for her and there weren't that many of those.

"What do you think?"

"Not bad, Adama; not bad at all."

"I thought we could put a house over there." He pointed to the edge of the cove, where a number of trees would protect a dwelling from the worst of the wind. She had to laugh at how far his analytical mind had already planned their life on New Kobol.

"You've really thought about this a lot haven't you?"

"I told you that I thought about you all the time when we were apart. When I came here it just seemed to me that it was the perfect place for us to make our home."

"And exactly what role was I playing in these fantasies of yours? I hope you're not expecting me to behave like the ideal little women in this idyllic scenario; keeping your house, tied to the kitchen, bare-foot and pregnant!"

"I know my limits Kara. There's brave and then there's just plain stupid. I think attempting to treat you like that would fall in to the latter category. Besides, if I remember rightly your cooking's awful." She threw a pillow at him. "Hey, you know the answer to that problem: do it yourself."

"Well I have done, sort of." He held up a box of food he'd managed to put together. "This is a full service day out: picturesque location, blanket and cushions for madame to relax on and a picnic!"

−

Kara escaped Lee's splashing and ran out of the waves and up the beach, laughing. She flopped down on the blanket that they had spread on the sand. Lee sat down beside her and smoothed a few stray hairs behind her ears with a tender hand.

"Happy Kara?" he asked, smiling.

"Mmm yeah, this was definitely one of you're better ideas," she said as she started to plaster Alex in yet more of the sun tan lotion someone had found for her at the bottom of a locker, a remnant of a long forgotten vacation from another life.

"I have my moments. So what do you think? Was I right or was I right? Isn't this the perfect place for us to have our home?"

"I can't believe that you've already decided that we're settling on the planet. What about our jobs?"

"I haven't decided anything Kara; you know that I wouldn't take that sort of decision without talking it through with you. I can't just abandon being Galactica's CAG any more than you can abandon your job. But whatever we do, we'll need a base on the planet. For Alex' sake."

She knew that he was right, and this place was ideal, but she didn't want to think about settling down into family life just at the moment. Although they were technically already a family it just didn't seem that way on Galactica. As much as she had changed and grown up since she had married Lee, she didn't think that she was ready to settle down to being a wife and mother full time just yet. Lee sensed her pensiveness and decided to give her a little space.

"Come on then buddy, let's go and build sand castles." He picked up his son and moved towards the edge of the water. She watched them happily scooping sand into an old can and turning it out to make castles. Actually, Lee seemed to be doing all the building; Alex was just happy scooping sand into his mouth. His expression of disgust as he tasted it was laughable. He seemed to be taking in his first experience of a planet with remarkable ease, but then, she supposed, every day must be full of new experiences when you were that young.

She decided to go for a walk to explore the bay that Lee had brought them to. She owed it to him to really work out in her head if she wanted to live in this place. Reaching the top of the beach, she stopped to take in the view of the countryside rolling away from the beach; it really was spectacular. She could understand why Lee was so keen on setting up home at this spot. Whilst she was scanning the hills visible against the horizon, her eye was suddenly caught by a flash in the distance, as if the sun light had caught something reflective. Was that possible? This planet was completely uninhabited, wasn't it? May be she had imagined it, just a trick of the light. But there it was again, she thought, as another flash caught her eye. Kara walked to their vehicle and dug out a pair of binoculars out of the back. She trained it on the ridge of hills in the distance from where the flash had come. What she saw there made her turn and sprint down the beach at top speed. She swooped down and grabbed her son. He started to scream at being taken away from bashing sand castles but she ignored him and started back up the beach at a run.

"Quick Lee, get all the stuff. We have to go," she yelled over her shoulder at him.

"Kara?….What?…What in the name of the Gods has gotten into you?"

"Cylons."

"Cylons? Is this some sort of joke 'cos I don't get it?"

"I never joke about the toasters, Lee." She chucked him the glasses. "See for yourself if you don't believe me. On the far ridge." Lee put the glasses to his eyes.

"Frak me, you're right. Where the hell did they come from?"

"I have no idea and I'm not about to stick around to ask them about their travel itinerary. We have to get back to the base."

"Looks like they're heading that way. I hope we can beat them to it."

He grabbed their stuff and started to run up the beach behind his wife. Once they reached their vehicle he grabbed the radio to call the base.

"Weird; nothing but static. May be we're in an aerial dip or something."

"Let's not worry about that right now. Let's just get going." She shouted at him as she strapped a still screaming Alex in the back.

Lee powered up the engines and they shot back over the bumpy terrain in the direction they had come.

−

Tom Zarek reflected that his plan to take over the fleet couldn't have gone any better. Once Evans had taken out those first two marines the rest had been easy. The weapons concealed inside of the shuttle from Galactica, provided by the oh so eager Mrs. Tigh, had quickly been retrieved. The other marines had been easily overcome, never suspecting that the guys seemingly just enjoying the sun would suddenly turn and overpower them at a slight signal from him. Seeing colonel Tigh humbled had been particularly satisfying: he looked forward with even more pleasure to seeing the same thing with admiral Adama.

The overall plan seemed to be playing out very well, judging by the number of blips on the dradis console indicating ships approaching the planet. He would soon be the ultimate power for what was left of the human race.

A disturbance outside made him turn, a frown marring his face. Had they missed someone? His people were no doubt apprehending the unfortunate person right now. The noise continued and seemed to get closer, and suddenly one of his men came screaming into the shelter.

"Boss, boss, there's something out there and it's coming this way!"

"Something? Can you be a bit more specific?"

"I don't know what they are. I saw them coming down the hill behind the base. They're like eight foot tall metal things and their hands turn into guns."

"Really, Jones, did you find a stash of ambrosia?"

"No honest boss, I really saw them."

"Cylons, they're Cylons," said a voice behind him.

Zarek turned to the sergeant of the marines who was attempting to stand, despite his bound hands and feet.

"What you describe is the new model Cylon centurion. Believe me; I've seen them up close and personal. They're killing machines. If there are Cylons out there then you need to let us go if we're to have any chance of taking them out."

Zarek thought for a few moments. This smelt like a trap to him. Maybe Adama had more troops on the planet than he knew about. May be they had rigged up some holo or something to try and convince them that the Cylons had found the planet.

"I'm not that easy to fool sergeant."

"Sir, this isn't any kind of trap, I can assure you."

Zarek hesitated again. He wanted to see for himself before he would even consider ordering the marines to be freed.

"Show me, Jones."

He moved over to the edge of the shelter and stuck his face outside. He saw a flash of silver, and then the gun fire and the screaming started.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

All hell broke loose in CIC the moment that Zarek's broadcast had finished. The admiral knew that he didn't have a lot of time to think through his next moves, so immediately swung into action by instinct.

"Lieutenant Gaeta, have them launch the alert fighters immediately and get all the other vipers out there as soon as you can. Specialist, get me an inventory of everyone who's on that planet. Find Major Adama and Captain Thrace and I want to know where the vice-president is. Dee, get me the president."

There was a chorus of "yes sir"s around his CIC.

Adama watched as various dradis blips of the fleet started to move towards the planet. They had no course and no plan: they were just breaking for freedom with little thought of the consequences. They would be lucky if there wasn't a major collision. He'd been caught with his pants down by Zarek and he was as mad as hell. His mood wasn't helped by Hotdog's voice coming over the radio, as he tried to lead the CAP in maintaining order in the fleet.

"It's crazy out here. There's no way we can stop them."

He had no XO, no CAG and no option to stop the break up of the fleet other than shooting them down. His only comfort was that the president was as furious as he was. Her anger seemed to radiate down the phone line.

"How could this have happened admiral? You assured me that this visit would be heavily guarded!"

"It was Madame President, but evidently it wasn't enough; I suspect that there was a traitor on the inside helping Zarek. Whoever it was, I intend to find them and then punish them accordingly, but right now my priority is to protect the civilians from themselves."

"There's nothing that we can do about it admiral. We just have to let them go to the planet. My staff can't get half of the ships to answer any radio messages."

"You're just giving up? You're going to let him win so easily?"

"Yes, for the moment. Trying to oppose Zarek at this time will only lead to civil conflict and I will not condone any blood shed. But I won't let him get away with it for long," she said, steel in her voice. "He's opposing a rightfully elected democratic government."

"That fact seems to have escaped his notice."

"For now, yes it has, but I'm sure he'll come to realise it soon enough when he tries to placate forty odd thousand people demanding food and shelter! Keep me informed of any developments admiral."

"Yes ma'am" replied the admiral with a wry smile. He'd learnt that she could be a formidable opponent when she wanted to be: he didn't rate Zarek's chances once she decided to take him on. He had hardly put down the phone from Laura Roslin when Dee was trying to get his attention again.

"Sir, I have major Adama on the line." He picked up the receiver again.

"Apollo. Where the hell are you? I need you to get back to the base now. Zarek's taken over. He's holding Tigh and everyone else hostage."

"Sir!" Lee tried to get a word in.

"Your first priority is to get back control of the ground to air defence system."

"Dad!" Lee shouted "Will you just for once in your life shut the frak up and listen to me!" There were a few smirks around CIC: Apollo obviously didn't realise that he was on their open channel. However, his next words wiped the smiles off their faces.

"You've got a much bigger problem than Zarek. There are Cylons on the planet."

"Cylons? How?"

"I don't know. Kara spotted them but by the time we'd made it back to alpha base it was too late."

"Too late…..?"

"They're dead, Dad. They're all dead. Zarek, Kelly, everyone."

"Saul?"

"We haven't found him yet, but it's just carnage here; it would be a miracle if he was alive."

Adama bowed his head in anguish. There seemed to be nothing else that could go wrong at this point.

"Have you heard from Dr Baltar's team?" he asked.

"No, I can't raise them on the radio."

"OK, when you and Starbuck have finished the search for survivors get back to Galactica. I've got a nasty feeling that we're going to need you up here." He was interrupted by Dee's anxious voice.

"Dradis contact…..Cylon base star."

"How close?"

"They're some way distant, sir. ETA five minutes."

"We have time to make a jump sir." Gaeta was at his side, an expectant look on his face as he awaited orders.

Adama swore profusely under his breath as he thought about his next move. There was no way that they could take on a base star with the fleet so scattered. There also wasn't time to get everyone, including Lee and Kara, back.

"Set condition one throughout the fleet. Have all ships jump to the emergency co-ordinates, lieutenant."

"I'll try, sir but most of them don't seem to be responding."

Adama turned his attention back to the receiver in his hand. "Lee, we've got some major company. I've got to get the fleet out of here. We'll be back for you as soon as we can."

−

**Author's note**: Sorry for such a short update. All the scene setting now pretty much done. Hoping to have a chance to get some more significant chapters done over the weekend to answer all those pressing questions: where did the Cylons come from? Where is the good doctor Baltar and what is he up to!


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

When Lee hung up after speaking with his father he put his head in his hands for a few moments to try and marshall his thoughts. How had the Cylons found them again? Just when things seemed to be coming together for the remaining people of the twelve colonies, everything fell apart again. He felt drained; drained and empty. He had seen some pretty awful things in his life, but nothing like this. He dared to take another look around the shelter. The air was heavy with the smell of copper: there was just so much blood, and he had to fight against a wave of nausea as his gaze swept across the mass of bodies slumped against each other. This was obviously where Zarek's men had rounded up the marines and other personnel of the base. Their hands and feet had been bound, giving them no chance of escaping. The Cylons had just shot them all where they sat.

Lee and Kara had known that they were too late as soon as they came near the camp. A plume of smoke was billowing from the burnt out shell of the Astral Queen. They had stopped the truck and hidden it behind some trees. Pulling out their weapons the pair of them had moved in silent formation towards the base. Everything had been much too quiet. The Cylons had obviously left; their job well and truly done. The first body that they had found had obviously been the man posted as a sentry. The look of surprised fear on his face told them that there had been little warning of the attack. He had been slashed across the chest and throat. From there on, as they moved through the base, all they found was a trail of bodies all the way to the main shelter. Some of Zarek's men had made it a little further, but they had been either shot or stabbed as they fled in terror. The man himself hadn't made it far out of the shelter; they had found him slumped near the entrance, shot multiple times in the head and chest. His chance at leading the remains of the human race had been very short lived. One of the things that worried them most was that, through all of this death and destruction, there wasn't a single dead centurion. The magazines of the few of the guns clutched by Zarek's men that they had examined were empty, but the ammunition had obviously been useless against the metal Cylons, making Lee and Kara concerned about how they could fight them if they came back.

Kara came back in to the shelter from checking the other tents and moved quietly to his side. She was struggling to hold back tears.

"I, er, found Tigh." He looked at her questioningly, but she just shook her head. "He was tied up in one of the storage tents. The Cylons must have just sprayed the tent with bullets. He took one in the back of the head. He was just sat there looking for all the world like he was going to get up and start yelling at me as usual." The tears had started to run down her cheeks. "I couldn't stand the stupid, drunken son of a bitch. Why am I crying because he's dead?"

"Because you know that no one deserves to die like this and because you're human. It's what makes us different from them."

"I can hardly believe this. There's a big difference between dropping a nuclear bomb from two miles up in space to this cold blooded face-to-face killing. I know this was the metal toasters but it's just so…so.. inhumane."

"That's exactly what it is, Kara, inhumane; because however much the Cylons might look like us they're not human." He paused for a few moments then pointed at the body of Ellen Tigh. "Looks like it was a pretty bad day all round for the XO. Seems like his wife was the one who was working with Zarek on the inside to help with his plan."

"How can you be sure that it was her?"

"She's the only one with no blood on her. She wasn't killed by the Cylons. She died of a broken neck. I bet she was already dead when the Cylons arrived."

"So much for honour amongst thieves."

Kara looked around for a few moments; breath coming in short bursts as she tried to control her emotions at the sight before her.

"When I was on Caprica there were no bodies; Helo said that the toasters had taken them all away for incineration. This is worse than how I imagined it." She turned and quickly ran outside; Lee could hear her retching from where he stood. He pulled all he needed from the dradis console and followed her, never wanting to go back into the shelter again. Kara was wiping her face with the sleeve of her shirt when he reached her.

"Hey, great day out, Adama. We must do this again sometime."

"Quit with the gallows humour Kara; it's not funny."

"It wasn't meant to be funny; it's just my way of coping."

"I know and I'm sorry. I'm not getting at you. It's just that I can't believe that they've found us again." He laid a hand on her shoulder then pulled her in for a brief hug. "Did you check on Alex?"

"Yeah. He's still asleep in the truck. I don't want him to see any of this. I know he's too young to understand it, but I just don't want him to see anything."

"No one should have to see something like this, Kara. Gods what a frakking waste." He kicked a nearby pile of metal containers viciously, snarling in frustration.

"Lee!" Kara admonished him. He just carried on giving the containers hell.

"This is my way of coping," he yelled over the noise.

"Apollo!" Kara shouted at him as she grabbed his arm to pull him away from the now thoroughly dented containers. "You need to get your head out of your ass and get us out of here. Let's just find the raptor and get the frak off this planet."

"I don't think that we can. I checked the raptor: the Cylons blasted it, and even if it is salvageable, the fleet had to jump away."

"Frak! Can't we jump after them?"

"Not unless you happen to know the emergency jump co-ordinates and you can also get a damaged raptor past the Cylon base star that's now sitting up there."

"Great! So we're stuck here? Alright then CAG what's the plan?"

"Umm….Load up the truck with as much survival gear, heavy duty ordinance and supplies as we can find and then get the frak away from here. I think that we should head west towards those mountains." He pointed to a mountain range in the distance. "We need to find Baltar and his team and that's where they were aiming for."

"Sounds like a plan. Should we even be taking the truck? Won't the Cylons be able to track us?"

"May be, but I sure as hell would rather have something with an engine to get me away from a Cylon centurion if they find us: leg power obviously isn't enough." He glanced down at one of the bodies caught fleeing from the shelter.

"I'm with you there. So, truck it is."

They scoured the various tents and storage areas and gathered together fuel, food and water and weapons. Once it was all loaded into the truck they made a makeshift grave for Tigh. They both agreed that they owed it to Lee's father to bury his friend with as much dignity as they could muster, little as it was. Kara, more familiar with the scriptures than Lee, said a prayer over the mound of earth once they had finished.

"Lords of Kobol hear our prayer. Take the souls of your sons and daughters lost today into your care. Many of them weren't the best of characters but they were still all your children. We especially ask you to guard the soul of Saul Tigh. May you grant him eternal rest."

"So say we all."

Lee put an arm around her shoulders and they stood in silent contemplation of the grave for a few moments before walking slowly back to the truck. They drove away with hardly a backward glance, glad to be away from the smell of death, but wary of what they were to face as they headed out towards the far mountains.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note: **Thanks for the feedback so far. Sorry that this is quite a short update but I have been struggling with this chapter all week and so decided to divide it up and post the front part while I continue to wrestle with the rest of it!

**Chapter 9**

Gaius Baltar was bored. He had been staring at the back of marine Trigs' head for what seemed like forever as they trudged through the forest. He had been pretty bored when they'd been sat in the transport truck for almost two days on the journey to reach the western mountain range, but at least the boredom had been regularly broken by the need to hang on as the truck bounced over the rough terrain. Once they had gotten to the point where the truck could no longer cope with the slope and the rocks at the foothills of the mountain range they had to leave it behind to start the climb up into the mountains. All he had to do since then was stare at the back of the marine's head for what seemed like miles. He had attempted conversation once or twice before discovering that the ability to engage in intelligent repartee was not high on a marine's list of essential qualifications. The engineers also seemed too in awe of him to be much use in passing the time. Even Six had abandoned him. She had wrapped herself around him on his comfortable bunk back at the base and calmly told him that he needed to get away from the camp and head for somewhere high up. That's why he'd come up with idea of this expedition, but no sooner had they set off than she'd completely disappeared from his head.

They stopped in a clearing to set up camp for the night. As the others worked to get their shelters up, Baltar wandered off into the trees where Six at last appeared to him. She was dressed in a long black leather coat and tight red pants.

"It's about bloody time. Nice of you to turn up at last. I've been going out of my frakking mind with boredom with only these asinine halfwits to talk to."

"Poor Gaius, it must have been quite horrid for you!"

"Yes, and all this hiking up mountains isn't really my scene either. Why am I doing this by the way?"

"All will be revealed in time Gaius; everything is going according to God's plan."

"I'm frakking sick of all this mystic 'all will be revealed' crap. I want to know what the plan is."

"You shall, Gaius and soon."

She put her arms around his neck and started sucking at his earlobe, but Baltar was disturbed by marine Simons approaching, fiddling with his fly and obviously about to relieve himself. He hastily stopped when he saw the doctor.

"Sorry doc, didn't see you there and your….um… friend." He brought his weapon up immediately. "Who is that woman doc?"

"You can see her?" Gaius asked, astounded, looking back and forward between the gently smiling Six and the confused marine.

"Of course I can see her. Woman like that would be difficult to miss, sir." Six' smile became more evil as she strolled over to the marine and trailed a hand over his arm and chest casually. Although he hoisted his weapon higher the marine seemed transfixed by her.

"When was the last time you saw a woman like me soldier?"

"Um…..er….."

There was the sound of rustling leaves behind them and then gun fire coming from the clearing. Simons turned quickly only to be met by the thrust of a centurion's arm slashing across his throat. He fell to the ground with a strangled cry, blood bubbling out of the wound.

Six moved back towards Baltar, a satisfied smirk on her face.

"It's time for you to come with me, Gaius. You won't be needing these other people any more." She took his arm and walked away from the clearing with him. Behind them there was the sound of more gun fire.

"Why could he see you? No one has ever seen you before," he asked, puzzled. "Are you my Six?"

"If by 'my Six' you mean do I have her consciousness and memories, then yes I am your Six."

He smiled at her then and let her lead him by the hand away from the scene of death behind them.

−

Lee and Kara came across the abandoned vehicle at the end of their second day. Like Baltar's party before them, they had reached the point where their vehicle was no longer of any use. They made a sling for Alex out of a back pack. With him on Kara's back and Lee carrying their supplies, they loaded as many weapons as they could carry onto their belts, pockets, anywhere that would take a grenade or an explosive round. They left their own truck and followed the trail made by the other party into the forest of trees at the bottom of the foothills.

They had been climbing steadily for several hours when they came to the clearing. Lee checked before moving into the open space; he didn't like the idea of them being so exposed and something just didn't feel right. Pulling the binoculars from his pack he scoured the clearing. He spotted the body of marine Trig and also one of the engineers.

"The Cylons have found them." He lowered his head in defeat and handed the glasses to Kara for her to confirm what he had seen. They carefully moved into the clearing, weapons at the ready. Kara soon found the other engineer and it wasn't long before Lee found marine Simons' body in the woods. Doctor Baltar, however, was no where to be found.

"What does this mean?" Kara asked.

"It could mean one of several things. Either the Cylons have taken Baltar hostage, thinking that holding the human's vice president would be a useful weapon, or he has now gone completely off his rocker and wandered off somewhere by himself. Then there is the most likely explanation."

"Which is what exactly?"

"Our dear friend Gaius may not be as mad as he seems but is in fact a Cylon agent, and has been all along."

Kara shivered, suddenly chilled.

"Come on, let's get the frak out of here. I feel like we're being watched."

−


	10. Chapter 10

**Spoiler alert (sort of): **Having watched The Farm (and boy am I glad that I don't have that annual check up for a while!), I thought I'd better warn you all that some of the themes about Cylon reproduction that I'm bringing into this chapter and subsequent ones might be construed as spoilerish. I actually came up with this part of the story and wrote most of it before I saw the episode (spooky!), and as this story is now on a completely different path to the actual show I think it's fairly safe, but I thought I ought to include a little warning if you want to see that episode in all its unspoiled glory first!

**Chapter 10**

No longer having any trail to follow Lee and Kara decided to head for the top of the nearest mountain ridge to see if they could get any clues as to the whereabouts of the Cylons. The climbing became harder and the air considerably cooler as they climbed. At the end of their second day of climbing they reached the top of the ridge as the light was fading. They were both exhausted and Alex was getting increasingly fractious; high spots of colour on his cheeks warning of impending trouble. Their only option was to find somewhere to camp for the night and survey the area in the morning.

They settled for a rocky ledge which was at least sheltered from the wind. The pair of them huddled closely together for warmth. They didn't dare light a fire for fear of alerting the Cylons to their presence. They had Alex tucked carefully between them to try and stop him from getting chilled. He was flushed and feverish and it took a long while to get him to sleep. By now even Lee had come to the conclusion that running for your lives on a Cylon-infested planet with a teething baby was not a very sensible idea, and Kara was very far from happy about the whole situation.

"I can't believe that we're doing this to him. What kind of parents are we to be dragging him around like this?"

"We didn't really have much choice. We couldn't exactly leave him behind at the base. You shouldn't blame yourself, Kara. He'll be OK." She was silent for a few moments, stroking the baby's soft, warm cheek.

"Bringing him into this wasn't fair of us."

"We didn't plan for the Cylons to suddenly appear, Kara."

"I didn't mean now, Lee. I meant at all: it wasn't fair of us to bring a child into the universe in the middle of all this conflict and uncertain existence."

"Are you saying that you regret having him?" He looked at her incredulously. He thought she had gotten over this a long time ago.

"I don't really know. I don't regret it for my sake, but I do for his. Now that he's here I love him to bits, you know that. But what I meant was, when we took the decision to have him we only considered the issue from our own points of view. We never considered the point of view of our child; whether it was right to inflict our current situation on a child. Look at him Lee! He's not even a year old and he's almost lost both of his parents on more than one occasion and now we've put him in danger of being injured, loosing his own life or worse still, captured by the Cylons."

"I won't let that happen, Kara. I'll do everything in my power to make sure that he's safe; that you're both safe." She looked up at him, a sad smile on her face.

"That's my Lee, always the ridiculous idealist."

He was silent for a few minutes as he watched her, his hand mechanically rubbing up and down her back. He was troubled by her words, but thought that may be they were just a reflection of the difficulties of their current situation. There was no doubt that she loved their son deeply, but he knew that Kara suffered from many fears about her fitness to be a mother. She didn't have a very good example from her own childhood to work from. He had no such doubts about her abilities and he tried to tell her as often as he could. For a viper pilot who hadn't really looked for parenthood, she was actually a natural; firm, no nonsense, yet fiercely loving. Somewhat like she was with him, his father, everyone she cared for, only with Alex it was more obvious. He thought he would try and lighten the mood a little.

"So I suppose another one is out of the question?" he smiled slyly at her. Kara just snorted.

"Lords Lee, you never give up do you! We're alone on a mountain top, abandoned by the fleet on a Cylon-infested planet and you think that it's a good time to bring up the topic of more children. If these past few days have shown us anything, it's that planning for any long term family life at the moment is pointless."

"It's not pointless to me, Kara. It's what keeps me going; knowing that I'm fighting to give my family a better, safer existence in the future. It's what you told me we were fighting for just before Alex was born," he reminded her.

"OK, I get the message. You'd like us to have another baby. Well let's just get this over and done with once and for all. Yes, I absolutely want us to have more children, eventually: please note the key word there. I was an only child and I wouldn't want Alex to miss out on siblings like I did: I could have done with their support during my childhood. I was always so jealous of you and Zac. The pair of you were always 'my brother this' and 'my brother that' and I want Alex to have that. I just don't want to have another child now or any time soon for that matter. I want to wait until things are more stable."

"We could be waiting forever for that," he replied.

"Yes we could, but I just can't do it at the moment, Lee." She looked at him steadily, willing him to understand.

"That's fair and it's actually fine by me; I don't want to push you into something that you're not ready for. Whenever you feel you can, just let me know!" He winked at her and pressed a brief kiss on the tip of her nose, his face telling her that he had accepted her point of view. He pulled her into a closer hug. "Let's get some sleep. I've got a nasty feeling that we're going to need to be rested to face tomorrow."

−

As soon as the sun rose in the morning they concealed themselves as best they could in a spot with a good view of the area below. The ridge on which they were perched dropped off quite sharply on the other side, creating a deep ravine between their mountain and the next one. On the other side of the ravine, the mountain rose steeply at first; there was then a small plateau before it rose again, much higher than the one they were on currently. A small, round lake had formed, covering much of the plateau, almost like the crater of an extinct volcano.

Lee trained the binoculars down the ravine but there was no sign of any Cylons. Moving up, his gaze was caught by a brief flash of movement on the far side of the lake. There was definitely something or someone moving over there, but it was too far away to get a clear view. He handed the glasses to Kara and pointed out the spot where he had seen the movement.

"Yeah, they're Cylons alright. How the frak did they get there and what are they doing out here in the middle of no where? I don't understand this at all. If they only came to this planet to exterminate the humans what are they still doing here? Why are they over there rather than chasing us?"

"Hey, don't even tempt fate by saying that. I've been thinking about this and I'm pretty convinced that they've been here all along. We haven't picked up any ships in this system at all. We haven't got the full surveillance system working, but we've been putting out enough raptor sweep patrols to notice a cylon ship arriving. No, they had to have been here already. Think about it: who was it that recommended this planet so strongly over the others?"

"Baltar."

"Exactly. If he has been working for the Cylons then he may have been leading us towards this planet for some time."

"But why didn't we find them when we surveyed?"

"Our equipment is only so good. Their spies in the fleet probably warned them when to keep a low profile and, of course, who was analysing the data…..?"

"Baltar! Gods, he's really taken us for a ride, hasn't he?"

"Yes he has."

"We need to get down there to find out exactly what they're doing. We also need to find Baltar and when we do I'm going to rip the frakker's heart out." Kara's expression didn't bode well for the vice president's future well-being!

"Get in the queue, sweetheart! I think I might have first dibs on that one."

"Hey, I don't care as long as one of us kills the bastard!"

"It's not going to be easy getting there: this ravine looks like its going to be tough to get across."

"Well we haven't done a good field exercise in a while. It'll be a good way of keeping us in the peak of condition!" she said, tongue firmly in cheek. He laughed quietly.

"After a night sleeping on a rock I think my condition has fallen into more of a deep trough than a peak." He stood up and tried to work out the cricks in his neck. He picked up his son. "You up for a bit more mountaineering little fella?" He received a contented gurgle in return. It was amazing what a full night's sleep, some food and a change of clothes seemed to have done to change him back to his normal, happy demeanour.

−

They started off down into the ravine, zig-zagging their way through the trees and rocks covering the side of the mountain. It took longer but was much safer than the direct 'free fall' route. There was a roaring noise coming from deep in the ravine which got louder and louder as they got closer to the bottom. A river was running through the ravine; not very wide, but very, very fast. There was no way that they could get across without being swept away by the churning current. Lee moved back up the river in the direction from where the loudest roar of the water was coming from. Round the next bend they were met with the sight of a high, fast-flowing waterfall. Making his way right to the side of the fall, Lee's instincts were proven to be right; there was a wide ridge of rock running behind the great sheet of water all the way to the other side. They took the opportunity to stop for a rest and a refreshing wash: their first one for more than three days. The water was cold and the pressure of the fall made it all the more bracing, but that only helped to ease their tired limbs.

"Nice one Apollo. You've found a route across and an instant shower as well! I don't know about you but I was kinda getting to the gagging stage."

"Enough said, Starbuck. You know what I think of your hygiene!" She threw him a look.

Alex' face, as Lee splash-washed him in a cold pool, was a picture as he tried to decide whether he liked it or not. Fortunately, he decided it was fun and his father got a good splashing in return, much to his mother's amusement. Having rested and re-stocked their water supply they set off again, reaching the other side and beginning the climb up to the plateau. They reached the lakeside as night began to fall. They quickly found a sheltered spot to rest for the night, taking it in turns to watch the movements of the Cylons on the other side of the lake.

−

Baltar awoke in a strange room. He had no recollection of how he had gotten there. His last memory was of leaving the mountainside clearing with Six. At least things seemed to be looking up now as he realised that the bed he was lying on was extremely comfortable. There was also a bowl full of fresh fruit on a nearby table. By the time he was dressed and no longer hungry, he was starting to wonder what he was supposed to do next when Six appeared. She had changed into her white dress (or may be she had just changed, he mused).

"Come with me, Gaius. It is time for the next stage of the plan to be revealed to you."

She led him by the hand through a series of underground passages until they came to a large room which resembled a laboratory. Several model Sixes and another Cylon model that he hadn't seen before were working at various work benches and machines. There were large vessels full of some sort of opaque liquid with strange shapes inside all around the lab. Some seemed to be wired up to banks of computers at the back of the room. In some the strange shapes were moving.

"What are they doing?"

"They're making our child, Gaius; our daughter."

"They're making her! Can't we just make her in the usual way?" As soon as he said this her face took on an alarming twitch.

"What you regard as the usual human way. You don't think that I'd let something as important as our child be left to the vagaries of a biological gestation process do you?" It was clear that this was a touchy subject. He looked from her set face to all the strange shapes in the vessels around the lab, realisation dawning that these were probably the products of the various experiments to produce a Cylon child. He shivered at the thought of what had gone on in this lab.

"But why is making a child regarded as the next step in Cylon development? Surely it's much less efficient than producing fully formed models. I would have thought that the next step in your evolution was natural reproduction." For once she didn't have some smart reply for him. He thought for a moment and started to put two and two together. "Cylons can't sustain pregnancy can they? The pregnant Valerii model that came to Galactica miscarried."

"We don't need to," she replied defiantly. "We are close to perfecting the production of children by much more certain means. Our daughter will be the first ever Cylon baby and she'll be made from your DNA and from mine," she said, pride in her voice.

"Where the hell did you get my DNA from?"

"You gave me endless samples of it during our two years together on Caprica, Gaius. I didn't waste them." He smirked in remembrance.

"Of course."

"She'll be our child Gaius; the first of our new generation. We'll take all the best parts of you and me to make a perfect child."

Baltar wasn't too sure that he liked the idea of this genetic manipulation or this way of having a child, but he certainly liked the idea of being the father of the next generation: the first of a new super breed of human-cylons.

"She'll just be the start, Gaius. God has chosen us to be the parents of all new Cylons." He reached up and caressed her face.

"That's wonderful. It's only natural that he would choose the best from both species, but tell God that I'm very honoured."

"You can tell him yourself when you meet him. A base star has arrived to take us to him."

"Marvellous! When do we leave?" he asked, thinking that things were finally getting somewhere. He had had to endure some pretty rough times over the last two years, close calls when his treason against the human race had almost been discovered, but now his patience seemed about to be rewarded.

"Not just yet. We still have to perfect our daughter and then God wants us to create a son."

"What's the hold up? Anything I can help with? I am accounted a genius you know." He gave her that ingratiating smile that had served him so well with any number of women.

"We need to understand how the child will develop more, understand whether the generation process will affect their development at all," she admitted. "That's why it is taking so long. We want to be sure that we have it right and that the child will develop normally as any human child would. We haven't had enough examples of actual human development to study."

"Yes, well it was hardly our fault that you nuked our entire civilisation. May be you should have thought about this part of your plan before you destroyed or irradiated the vast majority of human children." For once he was angered by her dismissal of what they had done to the human race. He was such a capricious mixture of conceit and contrition that she sometimes found his reactions unpredictable, but she could usually guarantee that his self-obsession would win over his guilt eventually. This proved to be the case this time as well as she appealed to his scientist's inquisitive nature.

"Come Gaius, let me show what we've done so far. Perhaps you might have a brilliant idea to help." He followed her with little hesitation to the first work station.

−

Lee and Kara moved stealthily around the lake in the grey light of the early morning. There were no Cylons in sight, but they couldn't take any risks that the area wasn't being closely monitored. Once on the other side they saw that there were several openings in the shear rock face rising up away from the lake: it was clear that there was some sort of cave system within the mountain. They chose the entrance which looked to be the least frequently used and slipped in. They moved down into the dank depths of the cave before coming out into a vast underground cavern. This just seemed to be full of some sort of storage tanks: the Cylons were obviously up to something here and had been for some time, confirming Lee's suspicions. They moved on as quietly as possible. They still hadn't encountered any Cylons, but they weren't letting down their guard. Again selecting a smaller, uncommonly used route they continued their exploration. The passage became so narrow that they had to crawl in single file at one point, Lee almost on his belly to keep Alex from knocking against the roof in his backpack. Eventually they came out into a larger cave, but this was just an antechamber high above the biggest cavern they had seen so far. Looking into the cavern they both gasped in awe at the sight that greeted them. The sheer scale of this underground cathedral was enormous. There were several large pods throughout the length of the cavern, each fed by any number of tubes and wires. Lee counted twelve in all. And from each one was emerging Cylon after Cylon.

"Frak me!"

There were hundreds of them. Everywhere they looked was familiar faces: Sharon, Leoben, that blond bitch that Kara had fought on Caprica. There were other models too that they hadn't seen before. Lee tried to impress their features in his mind so that when they got back to the fleet they could search for more spies and agents. One he definitely recognised: it was one of the deck hands, Lamma, Lanner or something. He couldn't quite recall his name, but now he understood why this guy, who seemed so timid, always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They turned to look at another line and both he and Kara gasped.

"Oh frak, not Helo! He can't be one of them!"

"He isn't," replied Kara quietly, recovering from her initial shock. "See, it looks very like him but there are differences. I'd take a bet that this is Helo's son or cloned son at least."

"Holy shit. But the Boomer model you brought back with you from Caprica lost their baby, and this one is twenty something years old, not two."

"I don't pretend to understand it Lee, but they've obviously experimented on a new model based on Helo's DNA. She got away from us on Caprica for a while; they could have gotten hold of it then. May be that's why she miscarried: she was probably just as much of a lab rat as Helo was." She shook her head in wonder at the sight before them. "We have to destroy this place. It might not stop them entirely but it should set them back far enough to give the fleet some breathing space once more and may be it will convince the Cylons that they don't wanna frak around with us." Her expression was full of determination and purpose.

"Or make them come after us with even more vengeance, but I agree with you and I think that it's a risk worth taking. The question is how to do it?"

She smirked at him "Watch and learn from the master."

"You're not in a viper now, Kara."

"No, but the same principles apply: let's use their tactics to our advantage."

They started to plan out how they might destroy the facility when they were interrupted by a familiar voice from behind them. A model Six stood at the entrance to the cavern, flanked by two centurions.

"Well, well, well. What have we here? Starbuck and Apollo! How nice of you to drop in. Our centurion raiding party on your base obviously wasn't as successful as we expected if they left you two alive." She caught a glimpse of Alex, securely strapped into his backpack and her expression became calculating. "And who is this little one? I'd heard that you had a son so I guess this must be him." Kara didn't like the way the Cylon was looking at Alex. She quickly lifted him out of the backpack on Lee's back and pulled him tightly against her chest with her arms securely round him.

"What a beautiful child. May I hold him? I find human children so fascinating."

"Frak off! You touch him and I'll kill you." Kara's natural mothering instincts came to the fore and she was like an enraged lioness protecting her cub.

"I asked you nicely the first time, Starbuck. I won't ask so politely again." She moved towards Kara, her arms outstretched, ready to wrest Alex away from his mother. Kara didn't think twice but pulled out her weapon and fired. Six staggered back as the centurions started to come to her aid. Lee had obviously been preparing for this move and hurled a grenade towards them. It exploded between the two centurions, taking them both out. Kara managed to get off another shot to finally kill Six before she could pounce again. She turned to run after Lee down the corridor the Cylons had appeared from, Alex still whimpering in her arms.

"Lords of Kobol, how many times do I have to kill that woman?"

"Probably a hell of a lot more before we're done."

They kept running and made it to the outside before the Cylons were able to react further to their presence. They started to run as quickly and quietly as possible through the trees around the lake and didn't stop until they made it to the other side. Lee darted behind some rocks and stopped to see if they were being followed. A group of centurions were coming out of the main entrance, lead by one of the Helo models.

"Quick, Kara, this way."

He ran back down the side of the mountain and headed for the waterfall. When they reached it he dashed back behind the flow of water along the rock ledge. Half way along he found what he was looking for: the entrance to a cave carved out behind the fall.

"I noticed this when we were here before. Come on. Hopefully we'll be safe in here, but it's going to be pretty dark and dingy."

"Dark and dingy is OK by me if it's Cylon-free."

They flopped down, both breathing heavily with exhaustion. When they had recovered their breath Kara turned Lee.

"Am I just being paranoid or was she very interested in Alex?"

"She was very interested in Alex." Replied Lee grimly.

"I haven't changed my mind. If anything I'm more determined than ever to destroy that operation."

"Yeah, I'm right with you there!"

-

**Author's note**: Phew, finished it. Still not entirely sure that it's 100 per cent right but I have finally completely run out of inspiration and am now at the tinkering rather than improving stage so I'll leave it to your tender mercies and move on to trying to get the next chapter right!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The space around Galactica when she arrived at the emergency jump co-ordinates was mercifully clear of enemy ships.

"Report, Mr. Gaeta."

"Yes sir. All fleet ships present and accounted for bar three."

"Which three?"

"The Astral Queen, obviously, the Virgon Express and the Mistral. 943 people in all."

The Virgon Express had already caused him enough problems but the Mistral was a loss. The biogenics labs on board had been starting to produce fresh food for the fleet. He thought for a moment about his next move. He had lost most of his executive staff, either temporarily or permanently, in one fell blow. The weight of command felt very heavy on his shoulders at that moment. However, there was no time like war to see whether or not raw talent could step up to the plate. Lee had managed it, so others could too. He felt a twist in his gut as he thought of Lee. He would do everything in his power to get his son and the rest of his family back safely.

"Lieutenant, please meet me in my quarters and have lieutenant Agathon report there also."

He moved quickly to his quarters and sat down at his desk. His eye caught the one picture that he had of Lee, Kara and Alex together, taken in the artificial sunshine on Cloud Nine during a recent visit. He had to will himself to look away from it and concentrate on the task at hand. After a discrete knock at the hatch Gaeta appeared.

"You wanted to see me sir?" Adama took a small box from the draw of his desk and rose to stand in front of Gaeta.

"I should have done this a long time ago. You deserve better recognition than for me to suddenly remember in a crisis what you've done for this ship and the fleet, but we'll deal with that later. Congratulations Captain Gaeta." He handed the new insignia to a stunned Gaeta.

"Thank you sir." Gaeta shook hands with the admiral, and with Helo who had just entered the office.

"My pleasure, Jim. I'm also making you acting XO. Helo, you will act as CAG for the time being. These are clearly acting positions: I won't give up hope that Colonel Tigh, Apollo and Starbuck are alive until we find otherwise."

"Yes, sir, we understand and fully agree, but how can I be CAG? I'm not a viper pilot."

"Being CAG isn't all about being a pilot, Helo. It's much more than that; it's about leading and organising your team. I've appointed you because you have demonstrated the best leadership skills amongst the senior staff under Apollo and Starbuck. You should put a lead pilot in charge of the viper squadron and concentrate on the organisation of the air group and their morale."

"Yes, sir and thank you for your trust."

"I fully expect it to be repaid; by both of you. Now gentlemen, let's get to work. What is our status Mr Gaeta?"

"Not good I'm afraid, sir. One of the FTL drives has malfunctioned. Tyrol says he may need 24 hours or more to repair it, depending on when and if he can scavenge the parts."

"Damn it!" He swore softly under his breath as the phone rang. He picked up the receiver and listened to the message. With a shake of the head and a sigh he replied tersely.

"Tell her that I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up and turned to his new executive team. They looked at him expectantly, trust shining out of their young faces. He felt very old. Gods this was going to be hard!

"I have been summoned to speak with the president and the council. Normally I'd tell them to go to hell, but I think it might just be time for a little payback. I want the chief given every available resource he needs to fix that FTL drive and the ship prepared for an assault on the cylons while I'm gone. Captain Gaeta, you have charge of the ship!"

−

The president sighed. She felt sick and so very tired. Her treatment, along with the strain of the last few days, was taking its toll on her health. She let the conversation ebb and flow around her. The admiral was being quite obdurate; he hadn't said "I told you so" yet, but she could see it in every line of his face and posture. It was understandable given what he had potentially lost in the last few hours. Maybe knowing that he had been right in his concerns all along was the reason why the council were so on the defensive with him. She took a few moments respite to swallow against the wave of nausea washing over her. The treatment seemed to be working again, but Cottle had upped the dose and the side effects were worse. When she zoned back in to the conversation again she realised that she needed to re-engage before the admiral took the representative from Aerilon to pieces.

"As soon as her FTL drive is repaired Galactica will return to the planet to mount a rescue expedition to retrieve the vice-president, our XO, CAG and flight instructor. The fleet will remain here."

"What you mean, admiral, is that you are going to remove our only protection in order to attempt a suicide mission to rescue your friend, son and daughter in law."

"Madame, if it wasn't for Colonel Tigh, Major Adama and Captain Thrace none of us would be alive today. The colonel has made countless critical decisions to save the fleet and Starbuck and Apollo put their lives on the line every day to keep the remains of humanity alive. Can you say the same? What have you done to save the fleet? They have been doing just that every day for two years and I will not abandon them." A muscle was twitching in his cheek as he stared at the woman menacingly. She flushed at his words but didn't seem to be picking up the warning signals to give up the fight at this point.

"Admiral, no one's saying….."

Laura knew that she needed to step in; the representative only had to mention something about the admiral's beloved grandson being stranded on New Kobol with his parents and he would go off like a rocket!

"Representative Magdalon," her voice was quiet but authoritative and the table was immediately silent. "Whilst I am also concerned about loosing Galactica's protection, I agree with the Admiral that a rescue mission must be mounted. Our military personnel are thin enough on the ground as it is; we cannot afford not to make an attempt to retrieve such experienced officers. Of course, it goes without saying that we cannot just leave our vice-president behind either. At the end of the day this is a military decision. I'm sure that the admiral will leave a CAP and one or two raptors behind which can alert Galactica to trouble, if necessary." He inclined his head towards her in recognition of her intervention.

"Of course, Madame President."

The Aerilon representative didn't look happy but had the intelligence not to argue any further; she could recognise when she had been out-manoeuvred.

−

The admiral listened carefully as Helo and Gaeta explained the options that they had come up with to remove the base star and free their route to the planet. Most of them were the familiar ones that had been successful in the past. The problem was that now, without a raider or Cylon transponder, the odds were so stacked against success that it would almost be optimistic to call it a suicide mission. He stared at the op board laid out in front of him. He knew that the key to this mission was there somewhere but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

"Of course we are assuming, sir, that the Virgon Express and Mistral will no longer be there and if they are that they have been infiltrated by Cylons and must be destroyed."

"Hmmm," he replied, seemingly absent minded. Gaeta and Helo exchanged looks but remained silent, watching the great man at work. "What were the positions of those two ships before we jumped?"

"The Virgon Express was one of those heading for the planet and it had made it here." Gaeta put a marker on the board. "The Mistral remained with the fleet and was here. I can only assume that their FTL drive malfunctioned." He added a second marker. The admiral studied the positions for a few moments, looking between the Mistral marker and that of the Cylon base star.

"Why did the base star jump in so far away? If they knew we were there and they were coming to engage us, why give us the chance to escape?"

"Maybe their positioning information wasn't accurate, sir."

"We've been in the same position for two months. Their information would have been accurate. No, I don't think that base star was coming for us at all. Something wider is happening here that we don't yet understand, but let us concentrate on our primary objective which is to retrieve our people from the planet. Assuming that the Cylons believe that all the humans on the planet are dead, they won't be expecting us to come back and that should give us the element of surprise that we need. We have a single nuclear warhead left so we get one shot at this base star and one shot only. We jump Galactica in as close as we dare and fire the warhead into the base star directly from Galactica. Helo, the vipers need to provide cover against raiders"

"Yes, sir, but isn't it a pretty big assumption to assume that they don't know there are humans still alive?" Helo's grin peeped out. "It is Starbuck and Apollo we're talking about here, sir: they're trouble magnets!" The admiral smiled wryly in return.

"You're right, Helo, but I think that even they should be able to keep themselves out of too much trouble for a couple of days. They're not likely to go charging in to engage the Cylons by themselves and with a baby in tow."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

On further inspection of the cave behind the waterfall, Lee found that it went back deep into the rock. He followed its twists and turns for a while, certain that up ahead he could see a chink of light. Sure enough, the narrow passageway opened out and above was a small slither of blue sky. Hoisting himself up and poking his head through the hole he realised that this was better than they could have hoped for. It came out in a clump of trees about half way up the slope to the far side of the lake. This meant that they now had two options of escape if the Cylons discovered them and also a quicker route back to the Cylon facility. The chamber beneath the opening was also reasonably dry which meant that they might get some sorely needed rest.

Once the baby was safely asleep, cosily wrapped in his father's jacket, they sat down to make their plans.

"First order of the day: let's assess our resources."

They both dumped the various pieces of weaponry stowed in their various pockets, belts and packs in a pile on the floor. Kara totted up their supplies.

"Four hand guns, one automatic rifle, a sub-machine gun, three knives, two boxes of explosive rounds and six extra clips. It's not much to take on a whole camp of Cylons with but I suppose it will have to do. Pity we don't have any explosives."

"Ah, I haven't finished yet." Lee was reaching into the side pockets of his pack and produced some more supplies with a flourish. "Five grenades, one large pack of C4 and two detonators."

"Now that's more like it. Sure you haven't got anything else stowed away in that thing?"

"Three protein energy bars, a clean diaper and two jars of baby food." He grinned at her.

"Well I've sometimes thought that Alex' diapers are lethal weapons, but I don't think they're really going to help here." She sat back on her haunches and looked at him. "This is a ludicrous idea isn't it?"

"Absolutely completely and utterly frakking insane."

"What were we thinking?"

"Beats me!"

"But we have to do it, don't we?"

"I think we do, yes. We can't let the fleet walk straight back into this if they come back to rescue us and there's no guarantee that they'll be coming back at all, so either way it's all up to us."

"Good, just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page with the committing total suicide in the name of humanity thing."

Using a stick they drew out a map on the cavern floor to plan their op. By the time the night was drawing in they had their plan pretty much worked out with one exception: they had no idea how they were going to get off the planet. As might be expected of any plan of Starbuck's inception, it was bold, outrageous and might just have worked if they were supported by a whole squad of marines and aerial back up. With just the two of them they knew that it would be next to impossible for them to get out alive.

"If by some miracle we do get through this, then we'll just have to find somewhere to hide and stick it out in the hope that Galactica will come back to rescue us."

"It's a bit lame as a get away plan," replied Lee.

"Do you really think that we'll need it?"

He looked at her steadily. "Nope," was all he said. She sighed deeply.

"We should get some sleep."

"Probably our last night together ever and you want to sleep, Kara?" He said, a smile playing round his mouth as he slipped his arms around her. She just snorted.

"Geez Lee, you're such a man sometimes!"

"Sorry; it's genetic. Don't tell me that you don't want to, er, go out with a bang?"

She looked at him quizzically. "Sure, it's just that I was supposed to get a top up jab from the doc. You know that if you get me pregnant again I'll kill you."

They both fell silent and looked at each other as the utter stupidity of this conversation suddenly struck them. Kara couldn't help it; she started to giggle and found that she couldn't stop, her hand held over her mouth to try and keep quiet.

"Lords, Kara, your priceless. You never give up do you? That's one of the reasons I love you so much. We're almost certain to die tomorrow but you always believe that we'll survive somehow."

"Hey, it's not over till the fat lady sings Mr pessimistic; and that's not going to be me!"

"In which case, are you willing to take the risk that my little soldiers might do their thing again?" She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

"In my experience your little soldiers are more like a damned elite marine unit, but what the heck, I've always been a 'frak the risk' kinda girl."

The pile of clothes they lay on the cave floor may not have been the most comfortable of beds, but it soon became irrelevant in the sea of feelings flowing between them. They made love slowly and thoroughly, savouring every touch and the feel of each other. The final moment of ecstasy was so beautiful, so poignant, that Kara couldn't help a sob from escaping. Lee kissed away the tears on her cheeks, his own eyes glistening with emotion.

"I love you," he whispered brokenly as he pulled her close, bringing her head to rest on his chest.

"I love you too, Lee, so very much." She didn't say it very often, but when she did he knew that she really meant it. He placed a light kiss on the top of her head as they both fell silent and just savoured the moment. As they lay in each others arms, neither could fall asleep. Kara looked up at him, her expression serious.

"Lee, if…..if it looks like we're not going to make it, I won't leave Alex to be captured by the Cylons." He nodded, his face grim. "It's just …….I know what will need to be done, but I don't think that I'll be able do it."

"No, you brought him in to the world; you shouldn't be the one to make him leave it. That will be my job."

−

They packed up their gear in the grey light of the early dawn and slipped out of the cave. They made their way as quickly and quietly as possible up to the lake. A quick scout with the binoculars told Lee that the Cylons had increased the patrols outside the facility; getting in was not going to be as easy as it was yesterday, but it was essential that they got in undetected or the whole plan was frakked from the start. Before they could move, the silence of the early morning was shattered by a great whirring of engines from overhead. A large ship that looked like it was some sort of cargo or transport ship was flying over the mountain, accompanied by two heavy raiders and half a dozen regular raiders. They watched closely as the ships dipped behind the other side of the mountain.

"They must have some sort of landing facility over there." Kara motioned towards where the planes had just disappeared.

"Makes sense. If this is their production facility then they would need some means of getting the newly made Cylons out. Maybe that's why there were so many there yesterday: they were all being made in time for this transport pick up."

"The base star is probably here to pick up a new crew. Well this is definitely a plus for us."

"Er, how come, Kara? Doesn't it mean that there's a bunch more Cylons to fight?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

"Engage brain, Lee. They'll all be distracted loading the transport so won't be paying so much attention looking for us and we may have improved our getaway chances: you know how I leerve to steal Cylon raiders!"

"Oh Lords! You just can't resist a new toy can you?"

Alex, perched on his father's back, started to chortle in delight, thinking that his parent's laughter was somehow directed at him. Kara went to play a little with him, but Lee's sudden hand on her arm and finger to his lips stopped her. They dipped behind the nearest rocks as the tell tale sound of Cylon centurions grew louder. The baby continued to make a noise. Kara tried to shush him but without success. Just as the centurions came in to view she resorted to giving him one of her fingers to suck on and that mercifully kept him quiet as they passed.

"That was close, but it looks like this might be our chance. While those guys are patrolling round the lake there's only a pair of toasters on the entrance."

They quickly scooted round the lake in the opposite direction to the Cylons. They waited silently, as close to the entrance as they could get, but there seemed no chance of getting in without at least one of the centurions spotting them.

"I've got an idea," whispered Lee.

"I thought you had that look of intense concentration on your face!" He pulled a grenade out and made to throw it but stopped.

"Actually, you're the one who was almost a professional pyramid player, you should do it." She nodded in understanding and took the grenade from him. She took the pin out and hurled it as far as she could. It sailed into some bushes on the other side of the facility entrance and exploded. The Cylon guards immediately had their gun hands drawn and moved towards the source of the explosion. Lee and Kara slipped quickly into the same little-used entrance that they had entered through on the previous day.

"The metal toasters aren't exactly the brains of this operation are they? That must be the oldest trick in the book."

"They might not have the brains, but they're certainly pretty efficient killing machines if they have a target so keep your gun at the ready."

"Got it, sir. One for metal toasters with explosive rounds and one for the others with the ordinary bullets."

They made their way stealthily to the main cavern, thankfully without incident. There was much less activity in the cavern today; they assumed that most of the activity had moved to wherever the transport ship had landed. Looking down at the vast cavern, they searched for what they needed to put their plan into action.

"There." Kara pointed to the far side of the cavern where all the tubes feeding the pods joined up and disappeared through a hole in the rock. There was a metal ladder rising up to the hole.

"How the frak are we going to get up there?"

"I have no idea. There must be another way in. Let's just try our luck and keep going."

They quietly moved through the endless passageways. The occasional glimpses they got of the main cavern through openings in the rock told them that they were heading in the right direction and making good progress. That progress was halted when they came up to a major passageway. They stayed in the shadows of the side passage and watched as Cylons filed past in pairs. There seemed to be a never ending stream of them, but eventually the last pair disappeared round the corner.

"That must be the way to the hanger bay."

"Yeah, good to have a point of reference in this maze."

They ran across the passageway and disappeared again into the darkness of the narrow side corridors. Eventually their efforts paid off and they found a set of metal stairs sheltered from the main chamber. They clambered up them and dragged open the hatch to find themselves in a vast storage room behind the main chamber.

"Bingo!"

The storage room was full of huge tanks of whatever was needed to feed into the production pods in the cavern below. Lee and Kara started to run around them, checking on any signs as to what they might contain.

"I don't read Cylon code but I'd say this was the universal sign for explosive." Kara pointed to a tank right in the middle triumphantly.

"Yup, that's our baby." Lee pulled out the pack of C4 and started to work quickly on the tank in question. Kara took the chance to give Alex some attention. Whilst she rocked him in her arms she glanced around the chamber. The largest pipe of all didn't go into any tank but disappeared into the rock wall above.

"That must be water. I wonder if they're taking it directly from the lake. We should blow that too and flood the place; then they'll never be able to use it again."

"Not sure that we've got enough explosive for that and I don't want to waste any just in case you're wrong. Anyway, if this stuff really is explosive it should take out that pipe as well." He finished placing the explosives and started work on the detonators. "How long do you think we'll need?"

"Find Baltar, kill him, get out of here. Thirty minutes should do it."

"Should we bother with Baltar? We could just try and get out in one piece."

"No, we've got to do this right. If he survives and the fleet comes back, who knows what crap he'll make up to maintain his cover and then they're right back where they started."

"Yeah, you're right; we can't leave the little shit to his own fate. How about I set the detonation for thirty three minutes?"

"Oh yeah, now that's frakking poetic irony!"

With Alex safely back in his sling, they headed back down the ladder and set off for the main passageway they had seen before. When they reached it, they moved out in formation, guns drawn, as they headed in the direction they had seen the Cylons moving earlier. Sticking her head round the first corner, Kara was dismayed to see two "Helo" models blocking their way. Lee signalled three, two, one with his fingers and they stepped out. Even though she knew it wasn't him, Kara still had to shut her eyes as she fired her gun at the image of Karl. Both their shots were clean kills and they sprinted past the fallen Cylons. Two centurions, alerted by the shots, came round the next corner before they could reach it.

"Explosive rounds, Kara," Lee shouted. They swapped guns and took out the centurions on the run, but alarms were starting to sound in the facility. When they reached the corner they saw two more centurions guarding a doorway, their guns at the ready. They charged round the corner, blasting away and took them both down.

"Now why do you think they were guarding this doorway?"

"Let's have a look and find out"

Lee opened the door and they stepped through into what appeared to be a large laboratory.

"Well hello Mr Vice president. Fancy seeing you here!" The drawling, familiar voice made Gaius Baltar turn to see Starbuck, a trademark grin plastered across her face, pointing a weapon at him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Lee came into the lab behind Kara, locked the door and made a surreptitious assessment of their position. Baltar was standing with one of the blond Cylons that they had fought on the previous day. There were two others, both different models, working in the lab. He saw Kara raise her weapon towards Baltar and speak to raise their notice to their entrance.

"Well hello Mr Vice president. Fancy seeing you here!" Baltar and the blond Cylon turned.

"Starbuck and Apollo again. You two really don't know when to give up do you?" Six smiled her sickly smile at them.

"I wasn't talking to you bitch."

Gaius was starting to recover from his shock of seeing Starbuck.

"No need for language like that, Captain Thrace, especially not in front of my child. You're just in time to meet our new daughter. You can be the first to congratulate us." He raised the small bundle in his arms, so that Kara noticed for the first time what he was holding.

"Yes, we'd so like her to meet your son." The sickly smile was still there, but the Cylon's voice was pure steel. Lee didn't like the look on her face and drew Alex round to his front where he could better protect him. His son was grizzling, obviously disturbed by the gun fire. Lee pulled him close and kissed the top of his head to try and soothe him, whilst still keeping his weapon trained on the other two Cylons, who had stepped towards him on Six' words.

Kara's grin faded completely as she took in the scene before her and her mind started to fill in the blanks as to what had been going on in this lab.

"I don't think that I want any child of mine anywhere near one yours. You've had a baby with a Cylon? You're even more perverted than I thought. I can't believe that's your child."

"Oh but she is," replied Six. "The first successful human-Cylon hybrid, created here in this lab." Kara snorted

"Created! And what are you? The proud mother? I don't believe this. It's not a child; it's a machine."

"She's not a machine. She's a real baby created from Gaius' DNA and from mine." Six' voice had started to rise in volume and vehemence. Kara realised that she was getting to the Cylon and went for the jugular.

"This is just sick. You're sick! All you've got is a synthetic child. I'm sorry, but you're deluding yourself if you think that thing is a real baby. It's just like you: synthetic, made, a machine. I know that you want what I've got; a child conceived naturally with the man you love, born out of your body. You can have no concept of the joy of bringing a child that you've nurtured inside you into the world, nursing him from your own body." As she said it she knew that it was true. Her child was a gift beyond price and she would do anything to stop the Cylons from harming him in any way. She almost felt sorry for this blond aberration, who obviously wanted to experience this joy so much herself that she had gone to the trouble of making herself a baby. But this was a momentary feeling and she decided to really dig the knife in to provoke the reaction that she was after. "You can't give Gaius a child created by love, whereas it would be easy for me. Lee hardly did more than look at me and I was pregnant. I could easily give Gaius a child." She looked at Baltar suggestively and caressed her stomach, making exaggerated circling movements with her hand. She smiled serenely at Six. The goaded Cylon snarled and threw herself at Kara's midriff. Kara brought her knee up sharply and it connected with Six' face, knocking her off balance. As she fell back onto the floor Kara put her foot down on the Cylon's throat, pressing enough to cut off her air supply.

"Don't you ever think that you can get away with threatening me or my family." She carefully aimed her weapon and fired; a clean shot between the eyes.

The two other Cylons started towards Kara, but Lee dealt with them efficiently. There were sounds of someone trying to get in from the corridor outside, but they still had to deal with Baltar. Gaius carefully laid the Cylon child down and came over to look at the body of Six.

"Never mind. There's plenty more where she came from. Unless you'd like to fulfil your offer, Starbuck?" He smiled at her lasciviously and ran a hand down her arm.

Lee stepped up between them and stood in front of Kara, glaring at Baltar.

"No you don't, Baltar. Step back."

"Marking your property major Adama?"

"You should know that I'm nobody's property, Gaius. I'm with Lee because I choose to be and because I happen to be in love with him." She glanced at Lee in what she hoped was a "shut up and let me run with this" type of way. She moved up to Baltar and whispered in his ear. "He can make me feel more just by the slightest touch of his hand than you managed pumping away for what seemed like hours. No wonder my mind wandered off on to more pleasant thoughts." She could feel Baltar tense up; he believed that his prowess with women was legion. He looked at Kara and then to Lee with loathing. Lee just shrugged his shoulders and smiled back at Gaius.

"Hey, I'm not complaining. I know who won that particular battle. She does have such a fine way with words doesn't she?"

Kara went on, leaning right into Baltar's face so that he couldn't ignore her words.

"You're nothing but an egotistical, self-obsessed little shit who sold out his entire people because some Cylon bitch was able to lead him by his dick. Well it's time the people got some revenge and I'm here to do it for them." She pulled out her gun and held it to his temple. The sounds outside the door became louder and suddenly another model Six came blasting through the door. She threw herself at Kara. They landed in a heap on the floor. The Cylon had the advantage as she started to punch Kara to get her to drop her weapon, but Kara managed to hang on to it and gave as good as she got. Lee and Baltar both moved towards the struggling women as more blond Cylons ploughed into the room. Kara's grip on her gun slipped after a particularly violent punch to her shoulder. It fell to the floor and fired. Surprised by the sudden retort they stopped their fight for a moment and turned to see one of the men falling to the ground.

"No!"

Six leapt away from Kara and grabbed the falling Baltar as a patch of red started to spread across his white shirt. He was dead before they hit the ground: a shot straight through the heart. Six started to scream and cry in agony. The other models came and crowded round her and they all started to keen and cry.

Lee pulled Kara to her feet. She was breathing a little heavily and holding her side. There was a low rumbling noise in the distance. Glancing at his watch, Lee realised that it was probably their explosive charges.

"Are you OK? We need to get out of here quickly. This place is either about to go up or we're gonna have a lot of very pissed Cylons after us."

"Yeah, job done! I just need a moment to get my breath back. What is it with that toaster and my ribs?"

Lee held the snivelling Alex closely to him as they sprinted back out into the corridor, the sound of Six' wailing following them.

−

"Execute jump, Captain Gaeta." The admiral's quiet, tense voice reflected the determination felt by all of Galactica's crew. The move that they were about to pull was incredibly dangerous. They planned to jump within a hair's breath of the Cylon base star to fire their last remaining nuclear warhead at its most vulnerable spot. If they missed their mark by a small amount they could jump in right on top of the other ship or too far away and allow it time to respond. The whole thing required precision and split second timing, but if the admiral was confident that they could do it, then so were they. They felt the familiar sensation of the jump, but were ready to spring into action as soon as it was completed.

"Report."

Gaeta had a quick look at his monitors. A satisfied smile came on to his face.

"We're in position A, sir!"

"Well done. Fire warhead. Launch alert fighters. Execute."

"Missile away, sir."

"Ahead full thrust to starboard. Execute."

They needed to get the Galactica away from the base star as quickly as possible. If the missile shot was successful she was so close that they would be caught in the fall out. If it wasn't then they needed to re-group for another attack; what with the admiral didn't know, but there was no going back before they had dealt with that ship now that they had come. Everyone watched the track of the missile on dradis. It looked like a direct hit. There were a few shouts of triumph around the CIC, but a glance from the admiral quelled them. They weren't out of this yet. Hotdog's voice came over the radio.

"Woo hoo; it's going up like a frakking Colonial day firework party!"

Slider's more reserved voice brought them back to reality.

"Galactica, you're gonna need to move much more quickly."

Before his sentence had even finished the ship was rocked by a shower of debris and fall out hitting its port side. The ship lurched violently and all power went out but came back on soon enough.

"Damage report!" demanded the admiral.

"Er…nothing major sir. The shielding seems to have done its job."

"Good. Now you can all cheer!"

A cacophony of noise broke out around the CIC. The admiral quietly shook the hands of his acting XO and acting CAG. He wouldn't be able to celebrate properly until he knew that his family were safe.

−

Lee and Kara took the corridor in the opposite direction from where they had come. They had no idea where they were going, but were hoping that it lead to the landing bay where the transport and raiders had landed earlier. The low rumbling had turned into the unmistakeable sound of a full scale explosion. It went on and on and got louder: the tank that they had rigged had obviously contained something very explosive and it seemed to have triggered the down-stream chain reaction that they had been hoping for.

"Gods, we're good!" panted Kara as they ran.

"Yeah, but don't get too cocky before we get ourselves out of here."

What was worrying them slightly was that there was a noise of crashing and banging getting closer behind them down the corridor. They stopped at a corner and took a quick look round it. A little way further the passageway opened out into what was obviously the landing bay area. The problem was the pair of Cylon centurions on guard at the entrance. The rumbling noise behind them got louder and they turned to see a wall of water crashing down the corridor towards them.

"I told you that pipe brought water from the lake! Death by water or Cylon?"

"Definitely Cylon." They charged round the corner, weapons firing. The centurions brought up their guns to fire but were distracted by the wave of water cascading down the corridor towards them. Their distraction allowed Lee and Kara to hit them and shoot past into the hanger. They pressed themselves back against the wall as the water came flowing in, taking out a number of Cylons in its path. The flow into the larger area took out some of its force but the area started to fill up quickly. They hugged the edge of the vast cavern and started towards the ships on the other side. The Cylons seemed to be in a panic. It was so unusual to see them like this. They were running every which way and seemed to be trying to get the transport and the other ships in to the air.

"Has our little extravaganza managed this or do you think that your father has come up with some plan to engage the base star?"

"Not sure. I hope it's the latter or this might be a very short trip off the planet."

The advantage of all this confusion was that they seemed to be ignored, at least for the time being. The launch deck was on a higher level of rock and so the ships were protected from the water. They were obviously still deep within the mountain as launch tubes had been channelled out of the rock. One of the raiders was already in a launch tube and they headed for that one. Kara took out the two Cylons that were working on the raider, which was powering up, ready to take off. She quickly found the entrance button and then slashed her way into the interior. Three close range shots into its brain silenced the engines and she got to work hacking the brain out. Lee sealed the tube door then took off his pack and concealed Alex behind a storage bin. Sounds from outside indicated that the Cylons had regained their interest in them and were trying to get the door opened so Lee took guard by the entrance. As it started to open he sprayed the Cylons with machine gun fire. They were starting to get low on ammunition. A second wave of Cylons trying to get through the door finished up the rounds in the machine gun and he tossed it away.

"Kara, quick! We're gonna have company," came Lee's shout as the door slid open again and half a dozen Cylons piled through. Lee quickly took out the first two then fired at the door controls and it thudded shut, hopefully permanently. Fortunately the Cylons weren't armed so it was really an unfair fight. One of them started heading towards the raider as Kara came out feet first. Lee swore but managed to get a shot off to kill the Cylon before it could attack her, but one of its partners knocked the gun from his hand and he had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. He could see two centurions coming up the launch tube, obviously from another entrance: they spelled much more trouble. He tried to grab his gun back but couldn't quite reach as his opponent held him down.

"Any more explosive rounds, Kara?" he shouted. She managed to look up at him and he nodded in the direction of the approaching centurions. She kicked the Cylon that she was fighting in the face and it gave her a second to dive for her other gun. One of the centurions had started to fire and she heard Lee's grunt of pain. She managed to take out one of the centurions before her adversary launched himself back at her.

"You OK?"

"Just dandy! Got me in the arm, nothing too drastic."

Kara could hear Alex crying above the noise. She wanted to get to him to shush him but she just couldn't get away from the Cylon that she was fighting. Eventually she managed to blast it and started to run towards where the baby was hidden. Unfortunately the last of the Cylon centurions had obviously heard him and was moving towards him ahead of her. She needed to reload her gun.

"Lee!" she screamed. He turned and took in the situation at a glance. Kara couldn't get the damned empty chamber out of her gun to re-load. The centurion raised its gun arm and aimed directly towards Alex' hiding place. Lee finally managed to finish off the Cylon he was fighting and charged in. As the centurion started to fire he threw himself over his son. Kara at last managed to re-load her gun and fired, killing the Cylon before it could get off any more shots.

That was the last one; they had survived. She rushed over to where Alex was now screaming fit to burst and picked him up quickly. He was covered in blood.

"Oh thank the Gods, Lee, he's OK," she said, as a quick check revealed that he was unhurt. Her brain suddenly registered that if the blood wasn't his then it had to be Lee's. She turned to where her husband lay unmoving.

"Lee! Lee! Oh, no, don't you do this to me, don't you dare do this to me." She checked for a pulse and was relieved to find one, weak and erratic but there, but the pool of blood collecting around him was growing. She found several bullet holes in the back of his jacket. His left arm was a mangled mess and he had a deep wound above his left eye where a bullet had caught the side of his face. This was definitely beyond her first aid capabilities. She took an instant decision; regardless of the possible presence of a base star, she had to get them out of here and get him to the medics as quickly as possible. She clambered back into the raider, hacked at the last of the connections and threw out the brain. She secured Alex who had by now reached the gulping stage, but who started screaming again, no doubt in objection to the smell inside the raider. She then went back to drag Lee's unconscious body into the ship, trying to ignore the trail of blood he left behind.

"Stay with me Lee" she whispered to him as she squeezed in next to him.

She powered up the ship and took off, praying that the Galactica would be there and that they had taken care of the base star. She had never been gladder to see the old hunk of metal when she came out of the ionosphere and saw its welcoming bulk. She was thankful that she still had one of their radios.

"Galactica, this is Starbuck, do you read me?" Nothing but static. She repeated the hail again. She caught the glimpse of two raiders coming after her. After the third time of hailing Galactica she was starting to get seriously worried when a voice came back.

"Starbuck, this is Galactica. Good to hear your voice. What is your position?"

"I'm in the first raider approaching Galactica so for frak sake tell the CAP not to fire on me, but to take out the two guys chasing me. Get the landing bay clear 'cos I'm coming in in a hurry. I want a medical team standing by and make sure it's Cottle. And you'd better tell the admiral that he needs to be there."

"Roger that Starbuck," replied the concerned voice from the radio.

The CAP approached but instead of firing two of them formed a formation guard around Starbuck's ship as the others charged off to take on the pursuing raiders. Kara brought the raider to a shuddering halt on the landing bay. Cottle was there when they hit the deck, looking grim as she helped them drag Lee out of the raider.

"I can't get a pulse." Cottle stated, grim faced. They got an oxygen mask on him quickly. One of the medics leapt onto the gurney and started CPR as the others pushed the gurney at pace towards sickbay.

Once the medics had rushed off, she pulled the now sleeping Alex from the raider, marvelling at the resilience of children, and collapsed on to the deck with him in her arms and finally gave way to tears. That was how the admiral found her a few minutes later, guided by Tyrol. He didn't say anything but got down on the floor next to her and held her while she cried, moaning Lee's name over and over.

−

**Author's note**: How was that for you? Couldn't resist the cliffhanger: you know how I usually love a happy ending, but is this the time when I give in to the temptation for a weepy?


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note: **very sorry for the long wait: long business trip with limited internet connection and no time to write. Have now managed to finish the last chapter: hope you enjoy it.

**Chapter 14**

By the time the admiral got Kara to sickbay there was no sign of major Cottle and his team, which Adama took as a good sign that meant they were still working on Lee. One of the nurses confirmed that he was in surgery as she took Alex from Kara to give him a check over and a good clean. Kara's eyes followed him as he went, as if she couldn't bear to let him out of her sight. Adama watched her carefully, noting the new collection of bruises on her arms, just visible through the accumulated filth of days on New Kobol and from the Cylon raider.

"You should go and get checked over too." She wrapped her arms around her body in a protective gesture.

"No, I'm OK."

"Well at least have a shower. Don't take this the wrong way Kara, but you stink." This raised a slight smile.

"Yeah, those raiders don't come in 'lemon fresh' scent." She still wouldn't move. He knew why and decided that he needed to push her.

"Go on. I'll stay here and I'll send someone to fetch you immediately if there's any news. You're going to feel much better once you're cleaned up and you might not get another chance for a long while once they bring him out of surgery."

She eventually went but joined him again after barely fifteen minutes considerably cleaner. They sat outside the operating room and felt the familiar lurch of the FTL drive as the Galactica jumped back to the fleet.

"So much for a new start on New Kobol."

"Yes, not quite the haven we had hoped for was it? According to our telemetry there's quite a big hole in now it anyway. You going to tell me what you two got up to down there as I take it you were the cause?"

She gave him a brief, unemotional account of what had happened to them on New Kobol. After her story was finished they were both quiet for a while, thinking over the events of the past week. Adama's thoughts and memories were on his old friend Saul whom he would sorely miss. His remembrances were interrupted by Kara's quiet voice.

"I'm very sorry sir."

"Whatever for, Kara?"

"Well it would seem that I've managed to kill your other son this time." He took her hand and looked at her seriously.

"Firstly, as far as we know he's not dead: Cottle wouldn't be taking all this time if there was no hope of him surviving and secondly, just like with Zac, it wasn't your fault, Kara. You didn't pull that trigger; the Cylon did."

"But if I'd been quicker re-loading my weapon….." The tears started to fall again.

"Don't torture yourself with ifs and what might have beens, Kara. It probably seemed like it took forever but was actually only a matter of seconds. If you ask Lee, he would say that he'd do the same thing again to save his son."

"I know, but I can't help thinking this way." She looked up at him, eyes huge pools of anguish. "I love him so very much."

"I know, I know." He patted her hand and held it tightly as they continued to wait.

-

Major Cottle sighed as he came out of the OR. Gods he needed a cigarette! He looked at the two people in front of him and wondered about the best way to deliver the news that he had to give them. In one way or another he seemed to spend half his time talking about the condition of a member of this family, but usually it was to Lee and he had come to appreciate and value that young man's no nonsense approach to any bad news that he received. He wasn't so sure how these two were going to react, especially as the news was very bad indeed. He set his face in his 'prepare for the worse' expression, which Adama picked up on immediately.

"He's gone hasn't he?" asked the admiral, his voice just an agonised rasp.

"No, we got him back and he survived the surgery. I expect him to live as long as we can keep him free from infection."

"There's a but to this isn't there doc?" responded Kara, her face fearful.

"I'm afraid that there is and it's a big one. You have to understand that he was very, very badly injured. I couldn't save his arm: we had to amputate just above the elbow. We won't know whether his head injury has affected his sight or brain function until he wakes up." Kara couldn't help letting out a sob. The doctor took her hand. "There's worse I'm afraid. I had to take out five bullets, most didn't do significant damage but one of them was lodged in his lower spine and it clipped his spinal cord. There's a lot of swelling so we can't tell the true extent of the damage yet, but it's almost certain that he'll be paralysed."

"Oh Gods!" Kara brought her hand to her mouth to try and stop herself from crying out. Adama and the doc grabbed her as she swayed.

"Can we see him?" she managed to whisper.

"Of course. Don't expect much from him for the next few days. I'm going to keep him pretty heavily sedated for a good while. He's lost a lot of blood and will be very weak." He took her hand and placed Lee's wedding ring into it. "We took this off. I thought you'd want to keep it for him," he said gruffly.

Adama took Kara by the arm and guided her through to the recovery room. She dropped down into the chair next to the bed and let the tears flow. He couldn't move from the foot of the bed at the sight that greeted him. Lee, his beautiful boy! He could hardly bear to look at him. There were monitors and tubes everywhere. He was uncovered from the waist up, with various dressings covering where the doc had removed bullets from his side and shoulder. Adama had to drag his eyes away from the bandaged stump of his left arm. The left side of his face was also heavily bandaged. Lee had always been so alive, so full of energy and purpose, even when he had been angry with his father, that Adama found it next to impossible to see him like this. Memories started to flit through his brain. The first time he had held his son when he'd been minutes old; his first words and his first steps. He remembered the last time that he had seen his son in a hospital bed after a ten year old Lee had fallen out of a tree and sustained a severe concussion and broken leg. Even then it had been because he was trying to be the best: reaching for the best fruit on the highest branch. After that the memories became hazier as his career kept him increasingly away from his family and his marriage started to disintegrate, but all the things that they had been through together more recently since the Cylon attack came flooding back to him as he stood there looking down at the still form of his son. He thought of all the strength and support that Lee had given him over the last two years, as both his son and his CAG, and realised that he was going to have to return that support with interest if they were to get through this. He had to steady himself by gripping the bed frame to stop himself from breaking down. He felt Cottle's hand on his shoulder in a gesture of comfort. The doc wanted to say something like 'it's not as bad as it looks' but in this case that wasn't really appropriate.

Kara lifted her head and wiped her face. She turned to Cottle, anxiety apparent in every gesture.

"I had to drag him, doc. I had to; I couldn't do anything else to get him into the ship. Did I cause the paralysis?"

"No, the bullet did the damage," he told her gently. "What you did might have contributed to the swelling, but you also saved his life by getting him back here so quickly."

"Is there anything we can do, doc?"

"Just be there for him. Talk to him." She nodded, a look of grim determination settling over her features.

So started their long vigil. They tried to make sure that one of them was with him at all times, but that was difficult, especially for the admiral who couldn't leave the ship to run itself with their current lack of experienced executive staff. The majority of the vigil therefore fell to Kara. Although she should have taken the job back, Adama left Helo as the temporary CAG so she could concentrate on Lee. Helo agreed readily because he too knew that there was no way that she was in the right state of mind to fly a viper at the moment.

After three days the doc decided he could start to withdraw the heavy sedating meds, but it wasn't long before that decision looked to be premature as Lee started to twitch and moan. He was fighting against the restraints holding him to the bed.

"What is it doc? Is he seizing? Is this something to do with his head injury?" asked his worried father.

"No, I don't think so. It's more like he's dreaming as he returns to consciousness, but we need to stop him; if he carries on he's going to worsen the damage to that spine."

Suddenly Kara knew what she had to do. She went to the phone and made a quick call then returned to the bed, speaking close to Lee's ear.

"It's alright Lee, we're safe. Thanks to you we're both safe, just like you promised."

Moments later Cally appeared carrying Alex. With a quick word of thanks Kara took him and moved back to Lee's bed.

"Its OK Lee, look he's here. You saved him. He wasn't hurt at all." She laid the baby down as close to his father as she could get him. Alex reached out and touched his father's face, chortling away happily, and within a short time Lee's frantic struggles had stopped.

From that moment on she was determined to keep Alex with Lee as much as possible. She had kept him away at first, wanting him to have as much of his normal routine as possible and also from wanting to protect him from the sight of his father so hurt, but after seeing Lee's reaction to him she knew that keeping him with his father was essential to Lee's recovery. She set up camp in his cordoned-off area of sickbay, with a camp bed for herself and a cot for Alex. The first day that Lee opened his eyes it was to see his son playing at his side. The little boy was proving difficult to keep in one place now that he had just about mastered crawling, but in this case she didn't stop him as he crawled up the bed. It may only have been baby talk but she thought he distinctly said "da da". Lee tried a weak smile and she knew that she was doing the right thing by keeping his son close to him.

Lee came in and out of consciousness over the next couple of days but gradually became more aware. That meant that the moment that Kara had been dreading was coming closer: they had to tell him about his injuries. That moment came one afternoon when the doc was doing a check of all the dressings and removing the majority of the bandaging around Lee's head. They had already agreed that if an opening came to tell him today then they would take it. The doc seemed to think that he was strong enough now. He seemed very satisfied with the progress as Lee's eyes successfully followed the pencil held in front of his face back and forward.

"That's good. Vision seems normal and no obvious signs of brain damage." Kara knew that was her cue for some cute remark about not having much brain to damage, but she was too wound up to even try.

"Any pain behind the eye, headaches?" the doc went on.

"Nothing significant. You must have me on some extra strong stuff, doc; I can't feel anything."

Kara couldn't help a sob escaping at the irony of that comment. The doctor took that as his entree and explained to Lee as gently as he could the extent of his injuries. Lee lay still, giving no indication of having heard Cottle at all, just staring at the ceiling. Kara sat quietly, holding his remaining hand, not trusting herself to speak without breaking down at the heartbreaking look on his face. They couldn't seem to get any reaction out of him at all; he just shut down. His father tried as well but with no success. Everyone came to visit him, from the president to Cally, but he wouldn't speak to any of them. Then one evening she came back from giving Alex his bath to find Lee lying with his good arm covering his eyes and his shoulders giving a tell tale heave. She quickly put the baby down and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Its OK Lee, it's OK." She didn't know what else to say and just rubbed his arm up and down in a gesture of comfort. Her relief at finally seeing some reaction from him was palpable, but the pain evident in the sound of his sobs was almost more than she could bear. Eventually he had cried himself out but he still lay with his arm covering his face. She left him to himself for a moment and went to see that Alex was safely settled down to sleep. A quiet voice behind her made her turn.

"I won't contest it if you want a divorce, Kara." He was staring at her with a look of grim determination on his face.

"What the frak are you talking about Lee?"

"I'm not the man you married any more am I Kara? I don't want to make you stay tied to a cripple."

"What sort of talk is that? I didn't marry you just for your body."

"If I remember rightly you married me because you were pregnant."

"That determined the timing of our marriage but not the reason for it. I married you because I happen to love you, you stupid idiot; that's not changed just because you're a bit bashed up. I can't believe that you think I'd be that frakking shallow. I remember the vow I took at our wedding even if you don't: together through ill-health and adversity." She took a deep breath. She couldn't get angry with him, but it was very important that she make him see that they could get through this together. "Now you listen to me Lee Adama and you listen good. This is a completely understandable initial reaction to what's happened to you, but I need you to be positive, Alex needs you to be positive." She stroked his face, feeling the muscles quilting under her fingers as he tried to control his emotions. She held her gaze to his, her eyes bright with her own tears, and willed him to be strong. It was only after a slight nod from him that she was satisfied that he was on the way to getting over this initial hurdle of acceptance. "Besides you're not getting rid of me that easily," she added, a slight smile to peeping out. She reached into her pocket then took his right hand and slipped his wedding ring on to the third finger.

"We'll keep it there until we can find you some sort of replacement for the other hand."

"I had to give you the choice," he said quietly. "But I'm so very glad you didn't take it."

"I know," she replied, her voice one of gentle understanding of this honourable man.

"Would it be considered pathetic to ask you to hold me?"

"Of course not. That's what I'm here for." She contemplated for a moment how he was lying and the various tubes and wires still attached to him. She carefully climbed onto the bed on his 'good' side and slid her arms around him, her face close enough to his to allow a quick kiss.

"Better?"

"Mmm."

"Good. Now sleep!"

They exchanged a soft kiss in lieu of words of love. She watched as his eyelids fell shut and didn't re-open.

In the depths of their darkest times, when there seemed to be no hope of escaping the Cylons, she had tried to prepare herself for the fact that he might die. But even in those times she had never begun to contemplate that he might come back to her alive, but so broken that he would never be able to hold her in his arms again, would no longer be the strong rock that she leant on, so weak that even giving her a smile was an effort. Viper pilots either made it back or they didn't; there was rarely much in between. Now they would never know again the exhilaration of charging their vipers together wing to wing through a 6G dive. One thing was for certain: the great Apollo would never fly a viper again.

Yet as she lay there, just holding him, a strange feeling of contentment settled over her. She had been struggling to find a balance in her life; a clarity of purpose. Well now she had one. Her internal battle between the old Starbuck and the new; the wife, the mother and the viper pilot, was now over. In the face of his terrible injuries, the sacrifice that he had made to save their son, nothing else mattered but to give Lee everything that she had to help him recover. As she lay watching the even rise and fall of his chest she realised the depth of her love for him; a love that she knew would survive this and every other adversity the universe threw at them. A chapter of their life together had been closed but a new one was just beginning. She tightened her hold on him and let herself sleep.

THE END


End file.
